


Red and Purple Don't Mix

by decco6226



Category: Splatoon
Genre: M/M, Man catfishing boy, Mystery, Secrets, Some may find this disturbing, Survival, it sounds bad but its really not, just make it through the first two chapters please, massive gay, revenge story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-06-26 13:49:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19769509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decco6226/pseuds/decco6226
Summary: -"I recognize this boy..." Hunter, the teenage octoling said as he held the paper in his hands above the safe. His eyes widened.-"The things you do wrong... they haunt you." The adult inkling spoke to his teen date at his house.-"This is officially... sick." Hunter concluded to Miles, in utter disgust.-The teen store at the blank red wall.-"PLEASE UNTIE ME, LET ME GO, PLEASE!" The adult wailed.-Sneaker footsteps on the floor.-The adult Miles spun around on the office chair.-"I have never hurt anyone!" He yelled with justification.-The computer read, 'Tried to shoot myself. Can't even do that right.'-Hunter flew backwards into the wall.-Plastic wrap over Miles' face.-"It's just so easy, to blame a KID!" Hunter screams.-The teenager jumping off the coffee table in fear.-Miles turned around. "Who are you!?"-Hunter runs outside in fear.-The octoling has a killing glare. "Playtime is over."-The two toast in the photography room.-"Now it's time to wake up." He concludes.





	1. Chapter 1

_Lensman319 – So we should finally hook up, baby?_

_Thongboooi14 – NOT a baby, i keep telling you_

_Lensman319 – I'll have to see for myself._

_Thongboooi14 – Think a baby reads zadie smith?_

_Lensman319 – Dunno. Babies pretend to read._

_Thongboooi14 – and you know this? you study babies?_

_Lensman319 – Only one I study is you._

_Thongboooi14 - :)~~ whatcha doing now?_

_Lensman319 – Besides fantasizing over you?_

_Thongboooi14 – you oughta film me with that videocam_

_Thongboooi14 – then you wouldn't have to fantasize_

_Lensman319 – This is very doable_

_Thongbooi14 – like me – KIDDING_

_Lensman319 – Tease._

_Thongboooi14 – okay, let's do it_

_Thongboooi14 – hook up i mean_

_Lensman319 – for real? Where?_

_Thongboooi14 – my big brother could drop me off at the cafe_

_Thongboooi14 – give me an hour to shower_

_Lensman319 – i'll picture it_

_Thongboooi14 – 11 am?_

_Lensman319 – done. go shower. now._

_Thongboooi14 – get a little bossy when you're hot, do ya?_

_Lensman314 – pleeeease_

_Thongboooi14 – that's better. see ya soon! Xxxxoooo_

  


~oO0Oo~

A black fork cut easily into a piece of soft, moist chocolate cake, the handler scooped it up and put it to his mouth. Hunter moaned as the dessert melted in his mouth, leaving a sweet taste that exploded in his mouth, hitting all of his taste buds. 

He looked at the cafe server. “That is _so_ good...”

Hunter was a small fourteen-year-old octoling. A light, cheery male, he always had a smile on his face, and blushes that ran through his cheeks. He had kind blue eyes, and skin so white it almost looked as fairy tales would say, 'paper'. But being the younger brother of his household, he was used to the more nicer comments. 

Hunter dressed quite normally for an octoling out in Inkopolis. His red shaved tentacles had a long mohawk-type of tentacle that draped off the middle of his forehead and curled at the tip. For today's date, upon him was his favorite shirt – a simple white urchin rock, that of which was under by a red hoodie. His entire thin body size was anything that a fourteen-year-old is, but something in those blue eyes that was very charming and mature

“I-I want more.” He said, smiling. 

“Don't get greedy.” An older male voice said from behind the blonde, causing Hunter to turn slowly, and store upon the male behind him. Said inkling was in his early thirties, wearing a nice light blue dress shirt, and black pants. He had nice, slicked back purple tentacles, kind eyes, and a pleasant smile. 

Hunter smiled. “Miles...?” He asked. 

“Hunter.” Miles greeted polity. 

Hunter smiled shyly and covered his face, turning halfway to hide his blush. “Sorry, I was feeling so sophisticated when we met.”

“Little hard to do that with a mouthful of... whatever that is,” Miles replied happily.

“O-oh it's great, it's great! D-do you want some?”

“Sure,” Miles said, smiling, and proceeded to wipe some excess chocolate off of Hunter’s lips with his thumb, and place it into his own lips. This caused Hunter to blush even redder and giggle.

“Mmm, yum.”

“That's, uh... kinda what I was thinking...” Hunter replied through a pink face. That's what caused Miles to look to the teen, and cock his head. 

“Sorry?”

“You just don't seem to be the kinda guy who has to meet boys over the internet.”

Miles stood silent for a second. “Well, I think it's better to meet people online first sometimes. Get to know what they're like inside. You work as a photographer, you find out real quick, people's faces lie.”

Once again, Hunter’s paper skin blushed into a shade of pink. “D-does my face lie...?” His smile stood, but eventually fell a little while he waited for the answer. 

“I look at those eyes, and I see... a boy who reads Zadie Smith, who listens to _Wet Floor_ and _Turquoise October_ . Who... _loves Monty Python_ episodes, and who desperately... madly... deeply... wants... needs... _longs_ for... more chocolate.” Miles smiled. 

Hunter let out a small breath of laughter. “Excellent, excellent judge of character.”

The two males laughed and walked to the cafe counter, Miles looking over Hunter like the boy is his son – well, he's old enough _to_ be. Hunter looked over to the clerk. “U-umm... could I get two of those truffles?” He asked, pointing behind the counter. “And, uh... two ganaches?” 

“Now, what's a ganache?” Miles asked in confusion, leaning an arm on the countertop. 

“You don't know what a ganache is? You're lucky you're with... me to introduce you to these things...” He said softly, blushing again. Typical Hunter.

“Two chocolate-covered hearts,” Miles added. 

“And a decaf latte for me,” Hunter adds. He looks to Miles, his eyes asking him if he wants anything else. 

“Nah, I'm good.”

“You do appear so,” Hunter says softly, bashfully as Miles charms him with cool. 

~oO0Oo~

The back of the coffee shop is filled with old, densely padded secondhand furniture. Against one wall, a bulletin board with flyers advertising massage therapists, yoga classes, and a sad photo-flyer in search of missing teen Travis Mauer – like Hunter, a fresh-scrubbed and handsome boy.

Hunter and Miles settle into two hard leather red seats with their food. “So, what's in the bag?” Miles asked for a conversation starter. Hunter's large brown bookbag sat on the floor next to the boy, stuffed to the brim. Hunter held the coffee in his hands.

“Oh, you know, just like, books n' stuff. I figured, if you stood me up I should have something to read, and uh... I couldn't decide. I'm reading this new book about Jean Seberg-” he took a gulp from the small coffee cup, looking at Miles, who was shaking his head, indicating he had no idea what he was talking about. “She's this actress who slept with all the wrong people... and ended up killing herself.”

Miles laughed once. “Don't _you_ do that.”

“No. I intend to sleep with all the right people. A-and plus, I'm reading _Romeo and Juliet_ , i-it's a ninth-grade book, but I figured I could... have it done before the school year starts, so...”

Miles cocked his head again, and smiled, looking at a large medical textbook poking out of the boy's book bag. “Doesn't look like Elizabethan tragedy.”

“Oh, uh,” Hunter covered the book with the top of his bag cover. “No, that's cause... W-well my dad... he's letting me audit one of his med school courses, right? I don't really understand half of it, but I totally love it.”

Miles smiled pleasantly and sat back in his seat. “What, so you, go to UIS” or _University of Inkopolis Square_ “and you sit in a lecture hall with all of these grad students, and, what do they hit on you?”

Hunter fiddled with his fork and blushed. “Why, are you jealous?”

“No, just admiring. I didn't know you were interested in that kinda thing.”

“What? You thought since we'd been chatting for three weeks that you knew everything about me?” He said mischievously. “Plus, they wouldn't hit on a fourteen-year-old-boy. They're old enough to be my dad, so...”

Miles nodded, thinking it over, and when Hunter went over the words in his head, his eyes went wide. 

He held the coffee cup in his hands, and let out a small sigh. “Th-they're like... They're _bad_ older. They're... You're not...” He sighed, appalled at himself. “I'm so articulate... Sorry, can I just, like, start over?” He stuttered, completely embarrassed. 

But Miles smiled pleasantly at him. “No. I get it. I get it.” He laughed, brushing it off. “I just thought...” He sat up. “You know, well, you look older than you are. You certainly _act_ older than you are.”

Hunter blushed and smiled a little. “R-really...?”

“Yeah. I was expecting someone not as impressive.” Miles said honestly. 

“M-me too...” Hunter took a small sip of his latte from his cup.

~oO0Oo~

Hunter store up at one of the cafe shirts on the corkboard wall. It was green, and had a picture of the front of his favorite cafe on the front, with the store's name printed under the picture. “Cool shirt...”

Miles looked over to him. “You want it?”

He rubbed his neck and smiled awkwardly, his wrist showing multiple elastic bands around his left wrist. “No, I didn't really bring enough bucks, so...”

“And yet, not what I was asking.”

“Well yeah sure, I _want_ it, but-”

Miles turned to the cashier. “Can I get a green shirt in a small, please.”

“No. No, no, I can't let you do that.”

“What? Because-”

“Because...”

“What? Because you'd be so indebted to me that you'd have to...” Miles didn't need to finish his sentence. 

That awkward smile appeared on Hunter’s face once again. “Okay, I guess I can let you do that.”

“You do have to model it for me, though.” 

“Conditions. I can't live with all these conditions.” Hunter whined in a mock-agony tone. But he looked up to Miles as the new shirt was placed on the counter. “Thanks.” Hunter then spread the t-shirt out in his hands. “This is so unfair...”

“What?”

Hunter pointed to the t-shirt. “I mean, this is when things _happen_. In the middle of the night, by which time I am completely out of the scene.”

Miles smiled, looking at Hunter. “Life as a teenager.”

Hunter sighed back. “ I just hate having to depend on Carlos to drive me everywhere.” The blonde ranted, walking to the cream and sugar stand to the left.

“You'll be driving before you know it,” Miles said sportively.

However, the teen octoling kept up his rant. “In the meantime, I missed Elizabeth Wurtzel speaking at UIS _and_ the _Turquoise October_ concert.”

Miles looked back down to him as he poured cream in his coffee. “I was at the _Turquoise October_ concert, actually.”

Hunter sighed, disappointing slightly. “Shut up. You were? Was it great? Of course, it was great, what am I saying?” He sighed a little until Miles said something that brought his spirits up.

“Well, you could judge for yourself.” He leaned down to Hunter. “I got a bootleg MP3.”

“ _You_ have a _concert?”_

Miles laughed. “Just one song. A little louder please, so the authorities know.”

Hunter’s smile came back. His date had a bootleg MP3 of his favorite band. It was the two best things in the world. “I totally have to hear it!”

“Well, I'll send it to you.”

Quietly, the octoling looked down, quietly saying, “After you get home after you get around to it.” He knew this was the sentence adults used all the time, and honestly, he was sick of hearing it. 

Miles looked to him and put on a wise smile. “Good things are worth the wait.”

They walked to the bathroom doors. “Oh, oh and what have _you_ waited for recently?” Hunter mocked. 

“Well, I'm gonna have to wait four years for you.”

Hunter backed up towards the bathroom doors. “You are just trying to distract me from that MP3.”

“Look, I have to send it. It's not like I can just take you over to my house. That would be a little insane.”

The red-tentacled octoling moved away to give room to the man who just walked out of the bathroom. “True...” In one hand he held the shirt, and he pointed to Miles. “Okay, now don't peek.”

That caused the older inkling to laugh as Hunter walked into the bathroom door, and he took a sip of coffee. “I shoot models for a living. I've seen it all before.”

Hunter’s voice was muffled from behind the door, but he could still hear his little teasing voice. “And you're _so sure_ about that?”

“Uh, I'm thinkin' yeah.”

“Well, maybe you _should_ peek. Make that clerk wonder what's goin' on over here.”

Miles smiled, resting his head on the orange wall as he leaned against it. This was going well. “In your dreams little squid.”

“ _Little squid_ ?” He asked, sounding shocked. “Whatever happened to how... _mature..._ I was?”

There was silence, until Hunter quickly opened the door, showing him in his jeans, and no top, just his thin, bare chest. “Is this mature enough for you?” He quickly shut the door.

“Okay...” Miles sighed. “You keep teasin' me like that, you're gonna drive me crazy.”

“Is that so? Okay, all right.” The red-tentacled teen opened up the door and displayed the t-shirt that was on him. “How's this?” He said, looking down to the ground awkwardly.

“Nice.”

He shut the door again. 

Back in his regular clothes, Hunter and Miles return to their seats. “Okay, now there's _three_ points I have to make.” He sat down. “One: You wouldn't take advantage because you've been seen with me here today.” He pulled his bookbag to his lap and stuffed the shirt in. “And two: It's _Turquoise October_.”

Miles snickered. “And three?”

“Well, and three... you said it would be insane for me to come over, and... well... Four:... Four out of five doctors _agree_ that I _am actually_ insane.” He said with a smile, baring that proudly. “Thus, I _have_ to come over... in order to be true to myself. Right?” He giggled and stood up.

Miles smiled. It was going _very_ well, and he considers it. 

The two rode up in the elevator that led up to the parking garage, awkwardly looking back and forth to each other, Hunter obviously blushing, scratching his cheek as well. As they stopped on the top floor of the parking structure, downtown rising in the distance, and the hills looming from another, Miles walks Hunter over to a black Cooper Mini.

“Um, and the fifth reason:” Hunter starts, a hint of excitement in his voice, “This amazing car.” He says as if it's a matter of fact. 

“Well, in the face of logic like that, I bow down and worship,” Miles says.

“Bow down?” Hunter asks, smiling, twisting awkwardly from side to side. He liked the sound of that... “That's a good idea. What're you waiting for?” He asked playfully. “Worship me.”

He approached Hunter’s. “Yes, oh, royal Thong-boy.” He knelt down. “I am not worthy to kiss your feet.”

Hunter turned a light shade of pink and smiled. “Well... maybe you are.” He said, rolling his eyes. And Miles did so, causing him to turn even pinker, and stammer, looking away. “M-Maybe we should, like, get going...”

“Yes... oh, magnificent Thong-boy.” And as he got up and unlocked the Copper's side door, he looked to Hunter. “You wanna call your brother? Tell him where you'll be?”

“M-maybe later...” Hunter said, dismissing it. “I just wanna get in this car.” And as he sat down on the nice seat, he put his bag on his lap, and Miles firmly closed the door for him after looking around. 

They drove through the thin streets, and up to a narrow hill, Hunter blushing and looking around. This is how young boys and girls disappeared... But through the streets and hills, they traveled, and they looked back and forth between each other. This was love...

Hunter looked away.

Was it love?


	2. Chapter 2

Miles’ home was the style of a vintage, modernist home from the '50s. Each wall in his house is painted one color, with the color style matching the wall. For instance, the living room and kitchen had one red wall, and the others had grey, thus, most of the furniture was sleek and modern grey and blacks, with a few wood-based pieces of furniture of oak. Miles walked past the small rock garden in his living room with two glasses of water, his walls containing art prints of handsome, barely clothed men shot with the eye of David Sailey or Herb Ritte – not tawdry stuff. But realistically, most of the boys looked on the verge of being undraped. 

In the media room side room of the house, it's outside walls being the same red, and inside is a light grey, Hunter clapped with a large pair of earphones on, as the bootlegged MP3 stopped. “So hot...”

Miles leaned against the side of the wall and held out one of the glasses, and Hunter looked up to it, skeptical. “What's wrong?” He asks. 

“W-well...” Hunter stammers awkwardly. “They teach us ‘young things’ not to drink anything we haven't mixed ourselves, so...”

“Smart.” Miles smiles, and Hunter shrugged. “Come back to the kitchen, I'll pour it again.”

“No, come on,” Hunter said, standing up and taking the glass into his hand, he bounced out of the room. “I can whip up something more entertaining than that!” He walked around the kitchen's island, and went into his fridge, looking at the type of food he had after setting his glass on the counter. “Hmm. Healthy dude, huh?”

“I try.” He said, leaning on the island. “Figure I'll live as long as I can.”

Hunter looked back to him, grabbing two fresh glasses from the cabinet above. “Living longer's overrated.”

“What? You don't wanna reach a ripe old age?”

Hunter shut the cabinet. “For what? When I'm eighty, what do I do for fun?” He poured some orange juice he retrieved from the fridge into the glasses.

“When you're eighty, I'll be ninety-eight,” Miles replied with a smile, the sentence coming out in a soft exhale. 

“Right... and useless to me.” The boy in the red hoodie smiled.

“Well, what use do you have in mind for me?” He asked, causing Hunter to look back to him, smiling mischievously. But when the boy stood silent, the man left to the media room, leaving Hunter twisting the juice cap back on. 

Opening up the freezer, the octoling teen pulled out a bottle of vodka, smiling triumphantly. “Ah, I knew there'd be something fun around here. I mean, other than wa-.” He stopped, listening as Miles turned on some funky music in the background. This made Hunter smile, and start pouring the alcohol into glasses. “Hey, I bet these dudes got some dirt on you.”

“Those are models,” Miles explained, walking into the kitchen.

“So, why are they on your walls instead of magazine covers? Here, looking at you, while...” He twisted the alcohol cap back on and looking shyly at Miles, a blush across his cheeks. “You know, you do the most intimate things.”

Miles took it in stride as Hunter prepared the screwdrivers. It was a little hard to tell whether he was being flirtatious or just silly. “My house is my studio. When clients come here, they're walking into my giant portfolio.”

“So what, these were all shot here?”

~oO0Oo~

The music continued as Miles pulled open the sheet doors, An Aeron chair sits against a light table for inspecting slides. On one wall, an array of cameras and lenses, and on the sides, racks of lights and props. Against the back wall, which Hunter gazed into when the room opened were sets of photo color tarps, which were currently uncoiled. Holding the screwdriver, Hunter inspected it all and quickly stepped in, very impressed. 

“Oh, my cod! Alright, you are like a big deal, aren't you?”

“I get work.”

He looked to the left. “Oh, is that one of those cameras that gives you like, the square image?”

Miles laughed. “How'd you know that?”

Hunter laughed a little. “I'm a goon... I just like, _read_ constantly, I mean you saw all those books in my bag-”

“You're not reading now.”

He giggled a little more. “I-I'm not, am I? Feels good...” He took a gulp and smiled at Miles and his nearly full glass. “Don't fall behind.”

“We should toast,” Miles said happily.

Hunter nodded, agreeing, and paused for a second, still staring into Miles’ eyes. “Carpe... omnius...”

“What's that?”

“I-it's my own little toast. You know carpe diem.” 

“Seize the day.” Miles translated. The two stood close to each other, one looking up to the other, the other looking down. 

“So, I figured, carpe omnius.”

“Take it all...” He translated too, and Hunter repeated it to him with a smirk, and they clinked glasses. But Hunter looked away shyly again. 

“So... what is it like... to look through your lens at some... beautiful man... who's working so hard to look good for you?” He shook his head playfully and flirtatiously moved his words.

Miles smiled and gave him a professional response. “Well, you know these models, they all have these handlers: people to make sure their hair is just right, makeup is okay, and they don't get lost on the way to their next gig.”

Hunter held his arms out. “So, you _never_ get to be alone with them?”

“Rarely.”

The red-tentacled octoling rolled his eyes and sighed playfully. “Poor Miles.”

“I am compensated for my troubles, don't worry about me.”

“But I _like_ worrying about you...” Hunter whined, shaking his head. “It... it makes me wonder...” His voice trailed off as he store into space. 

“What?”

Hunter store for a second, but then shook his head. “No, no. Forget it, forget it.”

“No, come on!” Miles cheered enthusiastically. “Come on, what's in that insane mind of yours?”

This made Hunter smile up at him. Someone... _someone_ who listened to him... who understood him... “Okay, we'll have another screwdriver, and then maybe, _maybe_ I'll tell you.” Quickly, he downed the rest of his drink before racing off. 

Hunter poured more orange juice. 

“I'm waiting.” Miles teased. 

“Hold on!” Hunter stopped when he looked at him, disappointed. “You know, you are _not_ keeping up!”

Smiling, and coming around to Hunter’s side on the island, leaning against the sink's counter, he downed the rest of the alcohol. He let out an exhale and set the glass down on the counter. But Hunter froze in his spot. “What?”

He smiled. “Okay, here's where you're supposed to make it easier for me and read my mind.”

Miles sighed happily. A teen was in his home, and it had to come up sooner or later. “You're wondering how many of these models I've done it with.”

Hunter was silent and looked away. “N-no.” _But now that he mentioned it..._ “How many?”

“None of them.”

“Oh, get out.” Hunter wasn't accepting that answer, and he poured the vodka into the drinks.

“No.” He said, defending his answer. “They're underage mostly. I'd be arrested...” 

Once again, Hunter tried to contradict him. “So you're not arrested for photographing them like this?”

“I'm very aware of the legal boundaries.” The inkling explained gently. “I have to be.”

“Right, right,” he said, brushing it off. “Because secretly...” He smiled, pointing the glass bottle at him, “ _Secretly_ , you _would_ like to do them.”

Miles smiled. “Nah, there's just... _one_ that I slept with... when we were _both_ younger.”

This made Hunter sigh a bit in anticipation and looked around at the photos around the walls. He pointed to one on the right wall. “That one?”

Miles shook his head and laughed. “Not out here.” And he took a drink. While his mouth was full of liquid, not giving a chance to respond, Hunter said, “In the bedroom,” and raced off. 

“No-”

The bedroom was just as sleek and simple as the rest, painted one shade of pink. Miles follows Hunter in, and he's staring at vintage 90's shots placed horizontally along the wall perfectly. They're all of a remarkable striking teenage boy, some Aviators on, a turquoise Squid Satin jacket - fully clothed – on the beach, in the woods, and looking particularly vulnerable in just a long, man's shirt on a bed with white stark sheets. 

“What's his name?” Hunter asked as he took the photo off the wall. 

“H-hey-”

He turned it over, looking at the writing written with a pen. “Aviator.” He read aloud. He savored the name like it's some sort of mysterious secret. The date _3/19_ was written on the back. 

“Yeah, Aviator.” He confirmed, placing it back on the wall. For the first time, Miles looked unsettled, sheepish. 

“So what? What? Was he like, the first big boyfriend or something?” Hunter asked, smiling.

“That's right...” Miles replied softly, sensitively, placing the shot back on the wall. He changed the topic. “Learned all my craft practicing on him.” 

“And that date. Was that the first time you guys...?” He played along with the words, but stopped, realizing he had crossed a line. He looked down and shook his head. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry...” He stopped, and looked up, waiting for something. “So what? Where is he now?”

“He actually signed a deal with _Ford_ right after this shoot. He really took off. He umm...”

It hit Hunter like a truck. “Oh, my cod... Okay, he is like, on magazine covers, I _know_ him! Well, like, not personally, obviously... You are more and more impressive every second!” 

“The models are impressive.” He contradicted, “I just know how to bring them out.”

“You still love him...” He teased. 

Miles looked to Hunter. “No.” He took a drink.

“Ah, yeah..”

“No.”

“Yeah!”

You could tell Miles was getting more flustered, anxious, his stomach sinking. “No.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“Really-really-really?”

“ _No_.” The harsh voice made Hunter jump back a bit, telling him it was time to stop. “I still love how simple things were back then but... You know I...” His voice hitched, and he sweated. “I don't want to forget that, but... we've moved on.” He concluded, and they walked away from the photos.

They sat on the bed, Hunter looked closely at Miles as he tried to play casual about his feelings. Miles took another drink.

“You're lonely,” Hunter concluded. 

Miles let out an amused noise. “No.”

“I can hear it in your voice.”

“I'm a big boy.” He assured him, and Hunter smiled, giggling happily.

“I guess... everyone kind of has an Aviator, right?”

“I guess...”

Silence.

“Hey! Hey!” Hunter bounced excitedly, placing his drink down. “What if you got out one of your cameras...” He pulled off his red hoodie, revealing his white Urchin Rock tee. “And we can see what you can bring out it me?” He smiled happily, and giggled, blushing everywhere. 

“Is this what you wanted to ask me?”

“Well, I-”

“It's not as easy as you think,” Miles said as his demeanor turned pro.

“Okay-”

“You know, models don't just pout their lips, they have to be willing to open up. They have to be willing to show us a little of their soul, their secrets... _And_ , most people only open up from weakness, nobody wants to see pictures... of _weak people_ ,” he ranted, “We look at great models because they open up...” He paused. “From a position of...” He paused, frowning as if from loss of thought. 

Hunter looked on, concerned. Did he have too much to drink? 

But he continued as if nothing ever happened. “Of strength. They have the strength... to believe they can do anything, no matter how...”

“A-are you okay...?” Huter asked softly. 

“Uhh... let's try something!”

They both bolted off the bed. 

They split paths when they got to the hall, Hunter running to his bookbag. He pulled out a CD mixtape from the bag. “Uh-uh!” He called, running to the stereo in the kitchen. “Do me out here!”

“I shoot everyone in my studio!”

A funky beat and music came on. “Oh, come on, but I'm not anyone, am I?”

Miles sighed and walked out to the scene. “Clearly not...”

He blinked as Hunter started to take off his top, moving his hips to the music, pouting for the camera. “Come on, Miles, shoot me...” He whined seductively. “Come on...” He pulled off his shirt, now dancing in his shorts and undershirt. 

Miles blinked and shook his head, the sound getting a little fuzzy and his vision kinda blurry. 

“Shoot me...” Hunter begged, licking his fingers. 

He readied the camera as Hunter wiggled his hips, shirt in hand. “Don't do that.”

“What?”

“That phony... music video crap.”

Hunter stroked his belly. “Come on.”

“Just be yourself. Be open. Weren't you just listening to me?”

Hunter leaned in, his voice stuttering in Mile’s brain. 

“C-c-c-c-o-o-o-m-m-e-e M-i-i-i-i-l-l-l-l-l-l-e-e-e-e-e-s-s-s-s... Sh-o-o-o-o-o-t me...”

“Look at me, be honest.” He shook his head again as Hunter acted like a male stripper on the couch.

Too much to drink... Too much to drink...

“Would you just listen to me? Sit down.” 

Hunter tossed his shirt away. “Miles, I don't-”

“ _Sit down!_ ” He yelled, commanding like. 

Hunter hastily obeyed. Miles was on the floor now, looking around, blurry, sweating. “A-are you okay...?”

“I-I don't feel so good...”

Hunter looked on with worry as Miles tried to sit up, but fell backward, collapsing to the floor, leaving Hunter with his mouth hanging open.

~oO0Oo~

Miles awoke on the office armchair, his coat over his head to give his face, and sensitive eyes some rest from the sun. He breathes heavily as he wakes up, looking around. 

Hunter ran to him, taking the coat off. “Did... did you call me?” He placed the coat down. “Sorry, I was just looking through your medicine cabinet.” No answer. “Okay, boring! No Valley of the Dolls stuff at all! I can't help but wondering why all the lubricants, though...”

Mutters escaped Miles’ lungs. 

“Oh, hey, just... you know, tell me when you're ready,” Hunter says. “Take your time.”

Miles looked around. They were in the kitchen, but his arms and feet were tied to the chair with thick blue rope. “What did you...?”

“You remember what I said about... not drinking anything you haven't mixed yourself?” Hunter’s cheery, happy face twisted downwards into a psychotic, evil glare as Miles sat at his mercy. “That's good advice for _everyone_.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so so so much for making it through the first two chapters. I had to make the first two chapters really uncomfortable about the pedophilia to make it really suspenseful later on. I hated to do that but that's the way the story was planned out. I promise, super promise, there's no more flirting or anything worse around this pedo material from here on out! From now on, it gets good.

“You know what? I'm sorry you were drugged for so long.” Hunter said. “I've never really done that before, and, oh, I swiped this from my dad.” He held up a small vial, showing it in mock-concern. “It didn't really come with directions,” he laughed, “and it's not like I could just go _ask_ him how much to use!” He backed up and smiled. “So, I probably used too much, or those screwdrivers could've messed with my judgment, doncha think?” He smiled as if saying, 'Silly me', and he walked to the kitchen, leaving Miles to slowly come around, his tongue still thick...

The octoling put a glass under the tap and filled it up with cold, drinkable water that inklings could actually drink. Turning off the tap, Hunter turned around, and walked over to the man, and held the glass to his lips. But he saw the skepticism in his eyes and held up his hand. “It's real water. Scout's honor.”

He tipped the glass up slowly as Miles took down some water quickly, his adrenaline rushed through his veins once realizing how helpless he was. He let out a groan from his pounding head and a cough from irritation in his scratchy throat. “Wha... Why do I get... tied up first, if... if this is how we're gonna play?”

Hunter’s face showed pure anger, shock... “Miles. Playtime is _over._ Now it's time to wake up.”

He blinked, those wide eyes showing fear. “This isn't funny...” But Hunter looked him over once, his blank face showing he may have considered it for a second, but he turned his back to him, walking to the kitchen's counter. The octoling opened a drawer while Miles struggled in the thick rope, grunting, clenching his teeth, but gave up in a second and sat back, on edge; afraid. “Is this some... teenage joke?”

Hunter shut the drawer and looked at him, a smug or amused look plastered on his face. “Teenage.” He laughed lightly, nodding his head smugly. “Yes.” He approached the man. “Joke?” He bent down so his face was in front of Miles’. “No.” He whispered.

Miles struggled again. “Now lemme g-”

“ _Patience_.” He interrupted, his voice dripping with venom. 

He struggled more. “Let me go.” He store into him. “Let me go.”

“ _Patience_.” He repeated. 

“Let me go.”

“ _Patience_.”

And the inkling stopped struggling, looking up at his captor, who said, “I'm just checking out this side of the house, okay?” This made Miles huff.

Hunter chatted away while looking through drawers like he was at a tea party. “You know, I saw this cop show once, it was great. And, the killer, well, he thought he cleaned up all the evidence, but some of the victim's blood and ink got on his shirt, and... yeah, sure, he _washed_ it, but some of the dried up blood got caught up in the lint trap...” Hunter emerged from the laundry room, a large lump of dryer lint in his palm. “So, I mean...” He shut the laundry room door, waving it in front of Miles’ face. “Anything in here I should know about?”

They stood there in the kitchen, white light shining through frosty glass planes, lighting up the red and grey walls. “What the fuck are you doing?” Miles asked, a hint of mock in his voice.

“That's kinda been my question, Miles. What the _fuck_ are you doing?! Living in a house, filled with pictures of half-naked teenage _inklings_ . Oh, none of whom, none of whom you've _ever_ done it with.”

That was enough for Miles. Twisting his head towards the window, he let out the loudest yell he ever could make. “Help! _Help!_ ”

Hunter jumped into action, and within the span of three seconds, he leaped forward like a cat, grabbed Miles by the jaw, and in mid yell, sprays Chloraseptic down his throat. The pressure hit his uvula, and he coughed and gagged on the peppery spritz, spitting to his side, and continued to hack up the taste. The red-tentacled octoling stood back, pissed, and the adult inkling coughed. Grabbing the armrests of the chair, Hunter pulled Miles close so he could stare into his eyes. 

“There's really no point in me taking _any_ risks, Miles.” He pointed the bottle at him. “Technically I could let you scream you _fucking_ brains out, and _no one_ is gonna hear you.” There was silence as Miles looked at him, and Hunter answered the question before it even came out. “Yeah, I waited till today, because Mr. Cofflin is at work, and the Corasko's, while they're vacationing by the New Albacore Hotel. Still, I just can't have some pedestrian just happenin' by as you're screaming, so _shut up_ , or next time, it's gonna be bleach, okay?” 

Straightening his back, Hunter set the bottle down, but his head whipped to Miles’ when he heard the words: “You've been stalking me?” 

Hunter laughed, wiping his eyes. “Okay... alright, let's get something straight. _You_ have been stalking _me_ ... yeah, I went into other chatrooms, with different nicknames, and you would get to know each one. And then... a-as soon as you find out they were any bit older than me, you would just drop them like _that_.” Hunter snapped his fingers. “You took your time sniffing out someone my age.”

“I didn't talk to the others because they were _boring_. You and I connected.” He defended.

“Oh yeah, right, right.” Hunter mocked sarcastically. 

“Come on, you think I faked all that?”

“You know, actually,” Hunter laughed, wiping his eyes again, smiling. “It's kinda funny. Because, every time I would mention some, like, obscure singer or band... you knew _so_ much about them! But not right away, it was like, a few minutes later. Maybe to give you enough time to look them up on the web?” There was silence as the younger octoling bent down to the much older, bigger, taller inkling - no fear on the teen, but only on the adult. “Miles... you used the same phrases about _Turquoise October_ as they do on _Amazon.com_...” He smiled. “Busted.”

Miles used the tips of his toes to back up into the chair as much as possible from Hunter.

“By the way... _I fucking_ **_hate_ ** _... Turquoise October_.”

Miles put on a fake desperate smile. “Come on... I wanted to impress you. Am I the first guy to do something stupid just to impress someone? Does that deserve being tied up and tortured?”

Hunter looked taken back, almost like he could cry. “Torture...? Is this _torture_ to you...? Wow, I guess you've never read anything from Amnesty International or Inking Rights Watch, because this...” He bent down to his face again, and his soft voice was so smooth... gentle... “This... is nothing...”

They store at each other, almost like they would indeed kiss, but Hunterspun the chair around for fun, and he spun around and around as the octoling walked away.

The teenager pulled on Miles’ jacket and sat down on a chair. “I mean, of course, you're not the first guy to lie to a boy, Miles. The operative word there, being ' _boy_ '. I mean, you know how old I am. What makes a _kid_ who's barely past his first wet dream worth all this research?”

Miles was silent.

“I mean you really gotta start to wonder when... a grown inkling goes through all this trouble just to charm a boy... Wow... there's that word again: boy.” Hunter then turned to Miles. “You know, maybe it's this whole camera thing.” The octoling’s cheery smile came back. “Cameras, computers, they let you hide, don't they? So safe.”

Miles exhaled and store at Hunter, who continued.

“I heard how your voice changed when the camera got between us.”

“My voice changed, because I felt sick, because you _drugged_ me.” He spelled out.

“Yeah, you were drugged alright.” Hunter smiled, standing up off the chair, and took off Mile’s coat from his thin body. “Drugged with sweet... little... fourteen-year-old flesh.” He hung up the coat on a chair.

“Look,” Miles started, paling. “I'm a decent guy, ask anyone. Go ahead. Here, call these models, they'll tell you.”

Hunter slowly approached like a lion. “Of course they will. You're not an idiot, Miles! You don't piss where you live. Those squids were your work, and I, on the other hand, was... your play.”

“You were coming onto me!”

“Oh, come on, that's what they _always_ say, Miles.”

“Who?”

“Who!? **_The pedophiles_ ** !” Hunter’s dam broke. “'He was so sexy', 'he was asking for it', or 'he was only technically a boy, he acted like a man... _It's just so easy, to blame a kid, isn't it!?_ ” He stepped back a little. “Just because a boy, knows how to imitate a man, does _not_ mean he's ready to do what a man does! I mean, you're the grown up here! I-if a kid, is experimenting and says something flirtatious, you _ignore_ it! You don't _encourage_ it! If a _kid_ , says 'Hey, let's make screwdrivers', you take the alcohol away, and you don't race them to the next drink!”

“Look, look, I-I've been lonely, okay? And that makes me do stupid things, but I am not... a pedophile...”

They started to argue. Their voices were at the same speed and sound, but Miles’ broke over. “ppened. Just **_untie me now_ **!”

“I might be a little peeved! So when _I_ am ready to go, _I'll_ call a cab, and call another one to let you loose!”

“And when will that be!?”

“I'm not sure yet!”

Hunter pushed Miles on the rolling chair into his bedroom and sat him in the corner. Walking over, he went to the right bedside table and opened up the drawer.

Miles started. “D-Don't-”

Hunter leaned up against the small table. “You can save yourself... _so_ much time by just dropping that word from your vocabulary.” He beamed proudly. “I'm gonna do what I want, Miles!” Moving to the second drawer, he opened it up. There was nothing out of the ordinary – odds and ends anyone may have. A postcard, playing cards, receipts, a little vial of X-Y jelly that makes him raise his eyebrow, then tosses away.

“See, a guy as smooth at seducing adolescence as you are, and who takes those... photographs,” He jerked his head in the direction of the photos, “I just figure, he has something around he doesn't want seen.” Hunter smiled at that last part. “And when I find that, then maybe I'll know what I'm dealing with.”

Miles struggled with the ropes again but stopped. “What you're _dealing_ with?”

“W-well, I mean, what kind of pedophile _are_ you? Just a voyeur?” He moved to the dresser.

“Again. _Not_ a pedophile.”

“Right.” He nodded. “You're a photographer.” Ironic, as Hunter was right below the pictures of Aviator. “It takes a genius to get paid for what you'd be happy to do for free.”

“Look, go into the living room!” Miles interrupted. “Look in the grey cabinet, pull out the third drawer down, you'll see prints that I've done for all kinds of environmental groups! I've done shots of the forgotten Yukon Territory... uh, the wilderness... the rare Inuit villages in the place that used to be called Alaska...”

Hunter wasn't impressed. His hand was on his hip. “So what? You love nature, thus you must be a nice guy?”

“I'm saying that my modeling shots are just part of my portfolio. I've shot _alot_ of different subjects, some of it very important work.” His voice turned deep, serious. He was straightened up, speaking strongly and convincingly. 

Hunter dug around more. “And it was _so_ important that you thought: 'Well, I can't possibly hang it on the walls of my home. I need to plaster _my_ house with pictures of underage satyrs and just tuck the nature shots away.'”

Miles sighed as Hunter shut some more drawers. 

The teenager looked to him, stood up, and slapped his own leg. “So... a voyeur _and_ a conservationist.”

“I am not a voyeur.”

“Not _just_ a voyeur... sometimes you like to kick it up a notch to actual molestation!”

“I am not a molester!” He argued back. “I have no idea who you've confused me with.”

“Sometimes you molest someone and they fight back, and you _completely_ lose control and you hurt them!”

“ _I have never hurt anyone!_ ” Miles said loudly, taken back, offended... maybe even scared at those words. 

But Hunter smiled. “Well we'll just see, won't we?” From the bottom drawer, from within its deep depths, Hunter pulled out a thick bundle of letters tied together with a rubber band.

“Those letters are mine,” Miles says quietly.

The octoling teenager smiled with a blush. “Nothing's yours when you invite a teenager into your home!”

Miles sighed, and Hunter shut the cabinet.

~oO0Oo~

Hunter rested in the chair in the media room, large headphones on. He shuffled through Aviator’s letters in his hands. “Don't love him anymore, huh?” Hunter called out with an amused laugh. “That explains why you saved these!”

“I thought about selling them on _E-Bay_.” Miles said dryly from behind. 

“Excuse me?” He pulled the headphones off. “Sorry, I couldn't hear you. Maybe it was the music, or... I don't know, maybe it was the bullshit.” With a remote, he turned off the stereo. 

“All right, honestly, someday I thought about sending them to him... _Reminding_ him of how much of a bitch he was.”

“Oh,” Hunter said smugly. “A little angry are we. He broke your heart and you haven't gotten over it.”

“Yeah, well, you walk into somebody's house, you start looking through their shit, you're gonna find things that embarrass them. It doesn't mean anything.”

Hunter shrugged. “Alright, okay.” He pulled open a letter, and read aloud from the written paper. “ _Dear Miles. You have to stop. I can't go where you wanna take me. You're just not the person I thought you were._ ”

“You don't have to read it, I know what it says.”

“I bet you do. How many times did you read this over to yourself?”

“None of your business.”

“What kind of person did he find out you were, Miles?” Hunter asked lightly. 

“None of your business.” He repeated more sternly, and the young octoling rolled his eyes. 

“That kind of depends on how you define business, actually.” He tossed the letter down to his side, and sat up, smiling like a therapist. “So what, did you find him? The boy you wanted? Is this what your work is? Just some big search?”

Miles didn't reply to him, only looked down. Hunter, in response to the silence, put the earphones over Miles’ head and tapped his ears while smiling. Sighing out of frustration, he shook them off, where they fell with a clatter once Hunter sat down at Miles’ computer.

“Are you the type of guy who likes to save his outgoing e-mails?” Hunter wondered aloud, resting his chin in his palm while clicking through the P.C. “Read them over and over again to think about what you said?”

Silence again.

“This is weird,” Hunter said to the light of Miles’ computer. “Your download manager says that you pulled some photos off the net, but... I-I can't find them.”

“Gosh, that's strange.” Miles’ replied like a smartass.

“Well, yeah, a smart guy doesn't leave photos on his computer. Cause that's the first place the cops are gonna look.” Miles’ started to laugh as Hunter continued. “And... you're into mementos.” He circled around the inkling, and bent down, putting his hands in his pockets. “So where do you put all the stuff you, uh, pull off the net, hmm?”

Miles didn't turn to him.

“Do you have a special little hiding place or something?”

The man cocked an eyebrow and turned to him. “I live alone. Why would I need a hiding place?”

“Just what I've been wondering,” Hunter admitted, walking around to face him. “I have looked through your _whole_ house... _everything_ ... and I have found no porn.” He clasped the armrests of the chair. “I have not found a single _bit_ of porn.” He rolled his eyes and leaned against him almost like a stripper would getting ready for a lap-dance. 

Miles let out another annoyed sigh.

“I mean, guys tend to have porn around don't they? I-I mean nothing against _it_ , nothing against _them_ . It's just the way they're brought up... But seriously, if a guy knows he can get away with it, _all_ guys, they all have porn at least somewhere in their crib.” Hunter sighed a little, thinking of his own porn stash at home, hidden under a floorboard in his room. 

“You've done studies on this of course-” Miles said, interrupting his thought process, and Hunter interrupted back. 

“ _Then_ I was thinking... that these photos on his wall, maybe _those_ are his porn...” The octoling kept going when he saw Miles’ changeless face. “But I bet their not your stroke shots... I bet whatever you have is so... _juicy_ ,” 

Miles focused on the octoling’s moist lips at that word, and Hunter continued.

“That it needs it's own little cubbyhole...” 

They store at each other...

“Isn't that right, Miles?”

Miles blinked. 

Huter smiled and raced throughout the house.

He started with the grey cabinet, opening each drawer, and looking behind them into the back, closing the cubby, and going to the next one above it. Hunter watched in complete shock and horror as Miles ripped out large paper prints and tossed them behind him, looking for the false bottom that he was so sure would be there. 

But there wasn't, leaving Hunter to rip out all the large prints and toss them to the floor, walking to the pink bedroom. 

Now was his chance. Miles clenched his teeth together and tried to pull his hands from the bindings. 

Hunter looked in between the mattresses of the pink bed, ripping open the sheets.

Miles shook and tried harder to slip his moist hands from their bindings.

The red-tentacled octoling dove under the bed, and pulled out a small oak box from beneath. He stood silent and still. 

The older man's face twitched in stress as the teenage boy held the black object in his fingers. The weight of the nine-millimeter Beretta shifted between his fingers, he studied it, appreciated it, and then he tossed it onto the mattress. Why would he have something so deadly as a gun, and not an inkgun…?

The purple inkling let out a gasp. 

Hunter was running out of time... He kicked the box back underneath, and went back into the hallway. The stress was getting to him. He sweated a little and held the back of his neck with both hands as he wandered the red hallway. He ended up violently ripping the canvases from the walls, tossing them to the floor with a clank, and dashed to the sofa, leaping over it, and ripping another print off the wall. 

Miles was halfway there, getting his feet free... He tried to take off his shoes. 

Hunter clenched his hair in a fist, frustrated. He had already looked underneath the couch... but the answer soon came right to his feet. Literally. 

The rock garden sat at his feet, and he thought for a second... kicking a stone, it moved, and that caused Miles to gasp out. Smirking, the boy shuffled the piles of rocks around, and below the center of the piles of rocks, lay a heavy-duty safe. 

Hunter store at it, proud.

~oO0Oo~

“So, what's the combination, Miles?” Hunter asked, walking up to him. 

Miles looked away. “Eat me.”

“Aww, look at how he's sweating. Does this _worry_ you, Miles?” The silence caused Huter to laugh. “Look, I'm gonna figure it out, so you might as well just tell me. I _am_ an honor student!” He said proudly.

“Take your time.” Miles mocked. 

“Oh. Oh, I will. Trust me, I got plenty.”

“No, not much. Aren't Mommy and Daddy gonna get worried if you're not home before dinner?”

“I'm thinkin' no,” Hunter said softly and started back to the safe when Miles’ voice stopped him.

“Oh, so is _that_ it? What, they too busy to keep track of you? So you reach out to somebody who thinks that he might care about you?” Hunter stopped in the black door frame, looking at him. “And you're so mad because they ignore you?”

He sees some vulnerability in the octoling. 

“They've always made a fuss over your older brother because he learned to do everything first? You're furious with them, but they _do_ love you, and they pay for your existence, but you can't let them _see_ any of that anger.”

“I-I'm not angry at them...” Hunter spoke softly. 

“No... No... absolutely not.” Miles spoke like a father - quietly, softly, delicately. “That'd be too dangerous. But you _are_ angry, and you gotta let it out somehow.”

Hunter was leaning against the door frame, stroking it,

“So you find a guy... an older guy... Maybe he reminds you a little of your dad... Let me guess, I look like him? He’s got my ink color?”

Hunter didn't turn to him, but you could tell the lie was very false, as you could hear it in his voice. “Y-you don't look... _anything_ like him...” He said softly.

“If you say so. But you gotta let that anger out somehow, and I seem like a good target-”

“Will you shut up?” He yelled. “Seriously, just shut up, you know _nothing_ about me!” He yelled, voice hitching, and he was on the verge of tears. 

“No, you're right. So... sit down and tell me. We'll talk.”

“Yeah right...”

“No, we can sit on the sofa and I'll... I'll call a taxi for ya... If you want, I'll hold you. If you don't want, I'll keep my distance. You can let it all out. If you need to cry. If you need to scream, whatever you need, Hunter.”

Said octoling walked in slowly, holding himself. “Y-You wouldn't be mad at me...?”

“I just want you to look at what you're doing.”

Hunter walked closer, still holding himself, looking like he's about to sob. “I-I just wanna ask, umm...” He broke down, his face muscles tensed and he started to hick his voice like when you cry. But he wasn't crying, his face was not frowning. He was smiling... he was _laughing_ . “Did... d-did you _seriously_ think that that was gonna work?” He giggled in between words and took a sigh of relief. “You're good at what you do, Miles. What you do is work with teenage squids, put them at ease, so they can trust you with all their secrets.”

“No, that's not what I was doing.”

Hunter pushed him towards the living room.


	4. Chapter 4

"Aviator’s birthday." 

Five beeps followed by three quick ones, indicating wrong. Hunter tapped on the edge of the keypad, deep in thought.

"Aviator’s phone number."

Six beeps followed by three quick ones again. 

"Aviator’s phone number _backwards_." Hunter’s voice started to have a bit of irritation in his voice, and Miles smirked.

"You're an honor student." 

The octoling looked up.

" _Try every. Possible. Combination of numbers_. It should only take you the rest of the week, if you figure in breaks for meals."

But Hunter leaned back a bit, returning Mile’s smart-ass smirk to him. "Or I... Or I could just, um, try March nineteenth. March nineteenth, first with Aviator?" He saw Mile’s straightened face as if it was yelling "Try it, bitch", to the red octoling, but that look was all the boy needed. "What's this, Miles? You _are_ 'Lensman319' after all. Was this the first photo session or the first time you banged him - or was that the same thing?"

The inkling was silent.

"Hm. What year would that have been? Three-nineteen-eighty seven?"

Five beeps followed by three quick ones. 

"Nope." Hunter looked up in thought. "Three-nineteen-eight nine?"

Five beeps followed by two quick ones, and a mechanical tumbler moving, and Hunter gasped happily and laughed, twisting the safe open. "How sentimental you are." Readjusting himself, he sat down on the rocks and pulled out the first object - a CD marked 'stuff' with black Sharpie. He set it aside and pulled out the next folder. "What's so special about these photos?"

Miles looked away.

Hunter’s eyes widened. "Oh..." He spoke so softly nobody could've heard it. _"This is what they make those federal laws for, Miles..."_ There was a screeching silence. "This is officially _sick_."

An embarrassed tear slid down Miles’ face.

Hunter held up a photograph taken of a boy outside of a coffee shop - the only picture of a boy in his clothes. "What makes this squid so special? Hm? Why does he get to keep his clothes on?" In a rage, Hunter stormed up and went to Miles, staring at him in the eyes with a gaze so hateful, it would make him drop dead on the spot if that phrase 'if looks could kill' was a possibility. He knelt down so he was eye to eye with him, and held up the photo, then turned to look at it.

"I recognize the boy."

A loud grunt and Miles sent his foot with all of his strength connecting to Hunter’s side, knocking him over. The octoling’s head connected violently with the corner of the steel table, sending the table sliding, and Hunter unconscious to the ground. Furiously, Miles kicked the teen out of the way and slides across the room to the hallway backward, keeping his eyes on the octoling until he turns the corner, back on all four wheels - running over some of the prints of his lying on the ground like fallen leaves, denting them. 

The gun contrasted on the pink sheets of the bed. What a lucky moment for Miles... Wheeling to the edge of the bed, the man brought the handgun closer to the edge using his feet and tried to grab it.

Hunter let out a high pitched whine and adjusted his head, eyes still closed, a nasty gash on his forehead beside the curl on the end of his one tentacle. 

His fingers were so close to touching it, but when the truth came to him that he wouldn't reach it, he sprang backward on his legs and landed on the mattress, the gun under him and the chair attached to Miles’ back. But, he easily grabbed it by the barrel, and as he readjusted it in his hands, he pushed himself off the mattress with a grunt, and slid backward on the wheels to the frame of his bedroom door and peeks out. 

The prints are there, but Hunter isn't. Only the ear-shattering silence is.

Quickly, he pushes himself out into the hallway. The man is strapped to the chair, one arm tied to each armrest, but one holding the pistol. Miles does a three-sixty turn, and hyperventilates, sweating.

Where is he?

Could he have left?

He spins around. "Hunter?" Miles looks around, the silence bothering him. "Where are you?"

Saran wrap covers his face, and Miles gasps for air as Hunter wraps onto his back like a spider and wraps it viciously around his head. They both struggle, and Miles propels himself backward with a leg, smashing Hunter between him and a large cabinet door, giving the one-tentacled octoling a gasp as air is forced from his lungs. And that's what Miles continued to do - smash the boy between the chair and the door, giving him painful gasps as the octoling, in turn, continued to wrap his face and close off his neck with his forearms. 

A large gunshot rang through the air, and sent enough adrenaline into Hunter’s body to push the man forward, and Miles stopped struggling slowly. Almost in tears, the octoling hung on for dear life as the hand that held the gun relaxed, and the moment the gun hit the floor, Hunter sobbed in pain and frustration. 

Pulling himself together, the octoling opened up his nasal and oral airways by folding the plastic wrap over his face and checked his wrist. Blood flow.

He immediately doubled over in pain, his sternum tightening, feeling like he was gonna throw up. His head pounded from either smacking it against the hard surface, or the amount he was crying.

Looking at his work, he grunted in frustration, and the once calm, sweet red-tentacled octoling now slammed his back against the cabinet door repeatedly, screaming ' _fuck_ ' over and over. It was the only thing that felt natural. 

~oO0Oo~

The white blinds were closed, letting in bright sunlight. 

The silver table with thick, blue rope tied to its legs. 

The inkling in the binds, whose name is Miles.

The lungs of the man, which let out a dazed breath.

The nudeness of the inkling’s lower area.

The bag of ice which covers his groin.

"Welcome back." Hunter smiled, his head covering Miles’ entire field of vision. The octoling is dressed in a blue nurse's gown, covered by the afternoon sun like he was a gift from Heaven. His face showed apprehension. Or was it excitement? "I'm sorry to expose you like this. I-it's not about sex," he said dryly. "But I've got to admit: you _are_ built."

Miles looked to the left, away from Hunter, and let out a grunt. "I never touched you. I was trying to hold you off me while I called the cops."

Hunter nodded and showed him a photograph. "Would you have shown them _this_ ? Why do you have a photo of Goggles Mauer in your safe? A-and, well, have you seen him, cause _no one else has._ "

Miles looked up, huffing, but making no voice. 

Hunter walked to the side. 

"I did meet Goggles for coffee." The man admitted. "I took a shot of him to make him happy."

Hunter leaned in. "So, how happy did you make him?"

Miles let out a sigh. "Look at him. He's fully dressed. You can... see the coffee shop behind him. I never brought him home."

Hunter huffed. "So, what? What, you just said, 'See you later, kid. It's been fun,'? Y-you coulda thrown this away... you didn't... you _needed_ to hang onto it. You needed to hang onto it... You coulda talked to the police."

"You're right."

"Y-yeah, or maybe you had something to hide - like the extensive _kiddie porn_ collect-"

"Look, I'm not the monster you think I am," Miles defended. "But, okay, I... crossed a line." He sighed. "Just call the cops, I'll turn myself in." He bargained.

Hunter rolled his eyes. He could already see the headlines... "A cute pedophile pleads guilty... 'But oh, it's not his fault. He's sick. He has an addiction.'" Hunter was quite honestly done with how the world dealt with these people. 

"I'll do jail. Isn't that what's supposed to happen?"

"Yeah, you might," Hunter admitted. "You might get jail time." He rolled his eyes and went down the list. "I don't know, therapy... drugs... group discussions, notifying people when you move into a new house. How bad is that, really?"

"It'll ruin my career, it'll ruin my life."

_"Didn't Roman Polanski just win an Oscar?"_ He sassed.

Miles let out a defeated sigh. "So why the ice?"

Hunter opened up the blinds.

Birds chirped.

"You know, I read the psych profile about the person who took Goggles Mauer. Said he's a… a loner. Thinks he's... pretty damn bright and as powerful as a teenage girl. He's gonna strike again. Sounds a lot like you."

"It's not me!"

"Maybe not, but, those photos that I found, and, the way you let me get drunk..." Hunter set down a small pair of metal scissors, shaving cream, and a pink razor. "You're a headline waiting to happen." He bent down to look at Miles in the eyes, his face smiling, inches away from the tools. "Everybody will be safer if I do a little preventive maintenance." 

He picked up the tools, and Miles’ eyes went as wide as dinner plates. "What the fuck are you doing!?"

"I have to shave you down here." He said matter-of-factually. "I-I mean, I can't have any hair on the incision site, right?"

_"What!?"_

Hunter took the ice off his groin and spoke as if he was a child coming up with an explanation to an angry parent. "W-well, I've been going to my dad's medical library at school, a-and, umm, you said I was pretty bright, right?" Hunter’s face went to one that jumped in pride. "I think I'm smart enough to... perform a... successful castration."

Miles’ eyes widened in shock as he lost his breath in shock, and he tried to spring up. "No!"

_"Please!"_

He shook violently in his binds. _"No! Ow!"_

"Okay, okay. I guess you're not numb enough yet." 

Miles’ eyes widened and he huffed in panic as Hunter replaced the ice on his groin. 

"What should we talk about while we're waiting?"

~oO0Oo~

"Dear Aviator," Hunter read aloud from his laptop in a flamboyant gay way to express his innocence to Miles. "My name is Hunter Stark, I hope you don't mind me writing you outta the blue like this! I met this guy that I think you knew... Miles Kohlver. He's _so_ cute, and, well, he seems to really like me! He even asked me over to his place to do some photography, and I am so excited about this, because, well, for a" Miles put extra emphasis on the number. " _Fourteen_ -year-old like me, this could be a huge break, ya know?"

He turned to Miles, his face straight, serious, dangerous. "And here I put in a little smiley face icon."

Hunter turned back to the laptop. "Thing is, and I've tried to pretend this isn't the case, but he talks about you an awful lot. And I have the ooky feeling that he's still in love with you. And, I'm pretty sweet on him too, but I don't wanna go crazy over him if there's still some chance that you two might get back together... So, so, so, so, I found your e-mail address in his PDA and I thought I'd just _ask_ . Is this insane...? Am _I_ insane...? Is Miles...?" 

Hunter looked to said person, still tied to the metal table.

"And I know this other boy he talks about all the time. His name is... _Goggles Mauer._ "

Miles looked in Hunter’s direction.

"Do you know anything about him? I found these photos on his computer, but silly me, I can't figure out how to open them, but I'm attaching them to this note. Are they pictures of you or Goggles? Anyhoo, thanks a mil. Your complete honesty will be "mucho" appreciated. Love and peace. Hunter."

That glaring face turned right back to Hunter and stabbed holes in his heart and lungs. "I tried to make it sound as innocent and moronic as possible. How do you think I did?"

There was silence between the two. 

"Fine." Hunter shrugged. "Guess I'll just send it and that'll be that."

Miles decided to try a new track. "You're getting yourself in terrible trouble," Miles spoke, almost like a parent warning their five-year-old.

"Oh, and how's that?" Hunter sassed back.

"If you cut me in any way, you won't forget it. It changes you when you hurt somebody."

"Oh, and you speak from experience, I guess."

"I've just lived - unlike you."

Hunter sat there in silence, looking at him, interested.

"The things you do wrong; they haunt you."

"Tell me what you're haunted by." Hunter’s gaze grew more interested. Miles thought of it as a child at bedtime, deep into the climax of the book their mother was reading them.

Miles store to the ceiling, and then looked to Hunter. "You wanna remember this day when you're with a guy on a date? On your wedding night? 'Cause I promise you, you will. Don't do that to yourself."

Hunter looked at him and smiled, letting out a pleased sigh. "Wow..." He tipped his head back and leaned it on the couch. "You know, that is so thoughtful. You are speaking to me so selflessly. I mean, you just don't want me to castrate _you_ for _my_ own benefit? Wow, I'm touched." Hunter then adjusted his head. "Miles, why don't we imagine someone saying the same thing to you at a random moment?" He turned to the laptop. "Imagine that, when you... downloaded this little boy... I was sitting by your side, saying, 'Stop. Don't do that to yourself,'. Would you have listened?"

The silence told them both what the true answer was.

Hunter clicked the trackpad. "Stop." Click. "Don't do that to yourself." Click. Stop." Click. "Don't do that to yourself." His voice was sad, yet sarcastic. Miles turned his head again to Hunter’s direction on the couch. "Stop." The octoling said. "Stop."

They store at each other.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

Hunter paces around the edge of the steel table, cell phone in hand, texting away. The high pitched beeps run throughout the house. Miles lets out a few frustrated grunts, and Hunter lets his hand drop to his side, deep in thought. As a slyful smirk spreads across his lips, the octoling places himself at the end of the table, and picks up the bag of ice, glaring at Miles’s penis. “You are good n’ numb, aren’t you?” He states, almost as if what he was stating was really cool.  
  
Miles’ voice was only annoyed. “Fuck off.”  
  
“Look, your conversational skills are really deteriorating as the day goes on.” The teenager sighs. But then his voice pipes up happily as if he was giving a presentation for a class project - even though Miles was shaking his head in denial as the shaving cream was spread around his pubic area. “Seriously, it turns out that castration is like, the easiest surgical procedure around. And, thousands of farm boys all across the country guild their own livestock. So I figure,” The octoling smiles dreamily… “If they can do it, then I can pull it off if you know what I mean.”  
  
“I’m not fucking livestock.” The grown inkling argues back.  
  
Hunter smiled sweetly. “You keep telling yourself that, stud.” The octoling looks back down when Miles screams at the top of his lungs.   
  
“Help! Help!”   
  
In a flash, Hunter runs over to the other side of the table, and grabs the spray bottle of bleach, squirting down Miles’ throat. He tries to jerk his head away from the liquid, but as he was bound, there was no real distance his head could achieve, and he gags. Placing the bottle down, Hunter looks to him sterny. “Look, that wasn’t necessary.”  
  
Miles coughs, his voice raspy and painful. “Argh, you douche.”  
  
“No more wiggling.” He orders, as he resumes his work, shaving him.   
  
Miles lets out a few more small coughs, and then took a small breath. “Does your… mother know you cut off men’s balls?” He asks harshly.  
  
Hunter stops for a second, then rinses the razor in the large tin bowl of warm water, the tool clinking in the bowl. “I’ve… never done it before today but…” He store into Miles’s eyes. “I dunno, maybe I’ll tell her when I get home; see what she says.” Hunter continued to glide the razor across Miles’s pubes, hearing scraping sounds as he finishes each word of his mock-mom voice. “Hunter, I know you needed a science fair project, but _really_?”  
  
“Ah, so you and your mom are both whacked.”  
  
The octoling stares into his eyes - no, his soul - with that comment, but then the gaze softened as Hunter wondered aloud, scratching his head. “I don’t know, that’s that whole… nature versus nurture question, isn’t it?” He raised his head proudly. “Was I born a… cute, vindictive little douche, or… did society make me that way?” He shrugged. “I go back and forth on that.”  
  
As the octoling bent down to work around the sides of his testicles, Miles began to panic, taking rapid, short breaths. Even when Hunter told him, “I’ll be done in a sec. I'm almost done,” he tries another approach.  
  
“There’s money in the safe.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“So you could take it. Look, you can take the camera equipment - take whatever you want!”  
  
“Look, I _am_. You really can’t talk me outta this by bribing me, okay?”  
  
There was a pause for a second. “How-how can I…?” He questions hopelessly through panting breaths.  
  
And then Hunter pauses. “What, talk me out of it? I don’t know, I haven't thought about that.” Placing down the razor, Hunter spoke aloud. “You know what? I need to sterilize this before we start.” He goes over to the side and retrieves the liquor bottle, and looks to Miles with a questioning look on his face like a child would. “Do you want me to use the vodka, or, uh…” His face turns rageful. “ _Do you have another alcohol you wanna offer me?_ ”  
  
Miles says nothing, overwhelmed.   
  
Unscrewing the lid and setting the cap to the side, Hunter pours some over the man's groin, who winces from the cold hitting the sensitive flesh. “O-okay, all that scraping I did; the blood probably rushed back in. Look, I have to numb you out a bit more, okay?” And bending down, Hunter concludes his current work by replacing the ice bag back over the man’s dick. He gathers up the current tools, bowl, and vodka in his hands. “I’ll be right back.”

And with that, Hunter is gone. Miles takes in strong breaths, looking around aimlessly at the situation. Looking for an answer, a signal, a calling… He stares at his bound wrists, and strains violently, flexing his hip muscles, shaking his arms, and then stops…

The front door was opened and then closed… He was left alone. 

No… No, the octoling wasn’t  _ that _ stupid to leave him alone…

Hyperventilating and looking around, he studies his surroundings, and goes through every option, thought, opening in his mind. Letting out a very struggled grunt, he tries with all his might to pull up his arms through the thick knots of the blue ropes. But of course, they are double-knotted.

Giving up rather quickly on straining, he starts to cry in the hopelessness situation.

Meanwhile, scissors snipped on roses outside. The owner of the hands being an inkling woman in her mid-forties, wearing a beautiful sunhat and sundress, tending to her garden work. Mrs. Toxuda looks up at the moving figure by the last rose at the top, curiously. A small teenager - an inkling - is on top of the roof of her neighbor, Miles’ house, looking around, almost surveying the area. 

Why would a grown man let a child go up on the roof alone?

She didn’t even guess that her neighbor was still struggling in his binds on the steel table, using momentum to slide the table, almost centimeter by centimeter to the right. One grunt after another, closer, and closer, looking down at Hunter’s smartphone left on the coffee table less than half a meter away.

Taking deep breaths to regain his energy, he continued to let out desperate cries before trying again, but with less energy this time. Even with the loud grunts - he had given up being quiet - it still didn't help him.

“Can I call someone for you?” Hunter questioned from behind him with a curious voice. “Is that what you…” 

Miles broak down into frustrated tears, his body shaking in sadness and rage, the ice bag on his crotch hitting the table multiple times. 

“Aww, I’m sorry…” Hunter apologizes. “You’re getting bored - I’m sorry, yeah, we gotta get this show on the road!” The boy scratched his head wound as he approached. Checking his groin, - and then the length of how far the table had moved - the octoling smiled proudly, and brushed his tentacle away from his eye. “Wow… that’s actually,  _ impressive _ .” He admitted and praised. “I thought it would be fun to see how far you could get,” he justified, “a-and I really only expected an inch… or  _ two _ ,” his voice turned to disbelief. “That’s… not bad!”

Fixing the ice bag, Miles’ head begins to spin. This boy, fixing the ice and smiling innocently, and him, all his efforts done for nothing… It’s wearing him down. Hunter’s head turned up to Miles’ eyes when the question was asked: “Why don’t you just kill me?”

The expression that is returned is… disbelief? Or is the grown inkling this stupid? “Is that what you think I want?” He wanders over to the head of the table. 

“Isn’t it?”

“Close.” He agrees, taking a hold of the table, and pulling it out of the kitchen. 

The rolling ceiling above turned to the recognized roof of the room: The photography room.

Excited, Hunter jogs to the corner of the room and grabs a camcorder on a taller tripod. “I love how, you have all this stuff!” He explains. “Because, like this way you can  _ watch _ , you know?” The huff of sadness out of Miles’ mouth, and his closed eyes makes Hunter roll his eyes, and pouts his mood. “Oh, now I’m hurt...” He focuses the camera on his junk, getting it  _ just _ right… “C’mon, I go through  _ all _ the trouble to set this up, and you don’t even wanna  _ watch _ ?”

Breaths from his exhausted lungs, and then Mile’s lips spoke words in a confused smile of memory. “I j… I-I stayed one summer with my aunt Denise and her kids… Rrrr-her kids were like five a-and I was, like, ten… t...-no, I was nine… And… th-the littlest one, the son, Mick. He, uh… he  _ loved  _ me, so uhh… he had this… he had this  _ game _ where he would… he jump outta the bathtub all soakin’ wet, and he’d jump on top of me… and he’d tickle me - and he’d yell ‘ _ prune attack! Prune attack _ ,’; cause his fingers were all pruney…”

Smiling, and then laughing, he continues almost in ecstasy. 

“I-I… I couldn’t do anything cause I was afraid I’d hurt him.” He justifies. “And I… think it was…  _ weird _ … and, one day, his… his mother came in, in the middle of it… and she saw her son naked on top of me… And then… She yelled at him.”

His voice goes eerily calm, like he is listing off groceries. 

“‘Mick… get back in the bathtub.’ Then she took me by the hand… and she dragged me to the kitchen. She turned the stove on. And we stood there while the burner got hot.She pulled my pants down, and lifted me up over the burner. I could feel the…  _ dirt _ on my skin from her hands. She must’ve been gardening… And I cried and cried… and I could hear the tears sizzle as they hit the burner. Then she sat me down. She said ‘If I ever catch you with my son again...’”

He didn’t need to finish the rest, as he sniffles, and then laughs.

“She called my mom. My mom came the next day. And I never saw Aunt Denise again.”

Rubber against skin is heard as Hunter pulled the medical gloves over his palms. “These things really… stick…” He complains like he was gossiping, his voice showing no sympathy for the story. He wasn’t falling for those tears that are not there. “Okay, well, y’know, we’re set.” He explains.

Miles gets really desperate. “Don’t-”

Stern eyes. “I told you not to use that word. Okay?”

“Hunter, please…” He begs. “You need help. A teenage boy doesn’t do this…”

A sneer from the octoling. “I’ve seen your idea of what a teenage boy should do with his days so  _ don’t _ even  _ start _ .”

“I’ll pay for a therapist.” He bribes back helplessly.

Silence. 

“Well thanks.” The red octoling admits, “Thanks, but, if I ever see a shrink I wanna make my case-”

“Hunter-”

“ _ really _ , really interesting.”

“Please, please,” He begs. “I’ll do whatever you want,” Miles whispers. “You could call the cops… I’ll say I did whatever you want.’

Sighing, the teen shrugs helplessly, as if saying, ‘too late’, which really, it was. “I don’t think they’re gonna a confession under these circumstances, Miles.”

“Then I’ll leave. I’ll leave!” He whispers. “I’ll leave, okay?”

Hunter leans in slowly like a lion and nods his head dramatically. “Mhmm…  **Goggles’ body would still be where you left it** .”

Miles leans back, screaming. “I’m not the guy!” He then wails like a child. “ _ I’m not the guy, I  _ **_swear_ ** !” 

Jeez, who was really the child here? Was the first thing Hunter could think of as he looks up at the ceiling, annoyed as hell. 

“Anything!” The man screams, already knowing it’s too late. “Please!  _ Please don’t do this! _ ”

Hunter smirks like Aviator in that one picture… and he knows his victim, trapped helplessly like a rabbit in a trap, recognizes it. “Anything?”

“ _ Anything _ !” He yells back instantly. “ _ Piss on me, fucking feed me  _ **_glass_ ** _ , I don’t care do whatever you want, I’ll  _ tell the cops I did whatever you want…” He voice dies. “Please just… please anything?”

“Anything?”

“Please…” 

“Anything?”

“Anything…” and there is one final helpless wail that echos throughout the walls. “ **_Please_ ** !” And he gives up, slamming his head on the steel. Sobbing, crying, the man hyperventilates and sweats, but feels a slight breeze of a body walking past him to his head. Still Hunter’s, as he places the laptop delicately on the table near them. 

“When I talked about sending that email to Aviator, you changed the subject… I could send it right now, pack up, and… and go… I mean, it could be the  _ best  _ thing that ever happened to you - you could stop  _ torturing  _ yourself with the idea that you might get back with him some day.” Silence. “What do you say?”

The grenade explodes. 

“ _ God, damnit,  _ **_get the fuck offa me!_ ** ”

The laptop is shut calmly.

“ **_Please untie me, let me go, please! Please don’t cut me, please! Please!_ ** _ I- _ ” He broke into sobs, and proceeds to have a tantrum amongst the steel, screaming and shaking as hard as he can until eventually, the man-child wore himself out.

Shocked, Hunter looked at him with pitiful eyes. “I shouldn’t have teased you like that…” He admits quietly, eyes filled with guilt. He throws the ice away. “I shouldn’t have let you think there was a way outta this…” 

The teen took a soft exhale, stretched a little, and pulled something out of his bag. The huge book Miles had seen earlier in the coffee shop. “Okay, umm…” he opens it up. “I got this, umm… medical text, and… look, if I forget anything, just don’t panic, okay? Cause… it’s right here.” 

Miles looks above his own self, and realizes his television is in front of him. He can see his own balls and uncircumcised length. The camcorder shows it through the audio output cord, yellowing into the TV.

The octoling smiled with a blush, and the smile straightened into a smirk. “Yeah. I knew you’d wanna watch…” He then looks back into Miles’ eyes seriously. “Look, if you move too much, I could... “ he struggled for a second. “Nick the peroneal artery and you could… you… you could like,  _ bleed _ to death before anyone got here, okay? So, please, I-I really need to have a steady, steady hand… okay?” He explains as if this was something Miles clearly wanted.

Silence.

“Miles?”

A spiteful silence.

“Okay…” The scalpel pokes at the soft flesh. “You feel that?”

The grown up stares above, and he gives a monotone expression, with a bit of hurt betrayal at the end of his question. “Why do you care…?”

“I’d be thankful for small favors.”

With that, slowly, the scalpel was pushed underneath the skin, and slowly dragged through like a knife through warm butter. Butter that streamed blood.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go bois and gurls! Hunter bout to get his THANGS

“Wow…” Hunter gives a soft exhale after looking at the spread open line in between each testicle on the inkling’s scrotum. “Wow, that went well.” 

Breathing heavily, Hunter starts his work. “Y’know, you told that uh, that Aunt Denise story very well.... very _very_ well…” He rolls his eyes as he spreads the cut open a bit more. “What, was it supposed to be some magic _key_ to explain why you are the way you are?” He mocks. “It doesn’t.”

Squeezing the scrotum lightly, both testicles pop out like a water stress ball toy. 

“Okay, um, what should I do first: your right or left testicle?” He asks, serious but excited. 

Miles, on the other hand, responds with panicked breaths - not a lot, though. He doesn’t want to give the boy the satisfaction again. 

Scratching behind his ear, the octoling shrugs. “Umm… why don’t we just say right.” And he continues. Using a small pair of medical scissors to slice through the tunica vaginalis, a creamy white membrane over the testicle, and then gives it a slight squeeze to free it from its bindings. It slides out rather easily and falls by his gloved palm. The testicle itself is a light white with a tint of purple to it. His hands move like an artist’s, slowly and delicately.

The scissors start to the vas deferens, the tube transporting the sperm to the penis. “Alright, now I just need to give it a little slice to free it up…” He explains as he places both scissor blades on the outside of the tube. “And then, umm… snip.” He places the scissors down. “Alright, now I just need to suture it up!” And he starts to do so.

“This would be so much easier if I had like, a nurse, or something.” He starts to make small talk. “But, y’know, I asked my friend if she’d help me castrate a guy, and, well, she started to make all these like, ooky sounds like I was asking her to swallow worms or something.”

Miles let out a panicked huff.

“Yeah, we’ll see who makes medical school in eight years, huh?” He asks enthusiastically as he had the vas deferens in his fingers. “Alright, you’re gonna feel a tug, cause I really gotta get this tight, alright.” He explains, and tugs the knot closed. “Just bear with me.” Silence. “Okay… okay, halfway through! Over the hump!” He cheers. 

Exhausted, quite, and weak, the voice sputters through the victim’s lips. “Cantcha stop…?”

“Miles… some men, they go through their whole lives with only one ball.”

He starts to panic and hyperventilate.

“And that’s _fine_ , y’know, or so I’ve _read_ , so, w-well I figure that you’re not really _punished_ if I leave you with a _spare_.” He spits evilly. One can do just as much damage as both…

Miles coughing, gagging, spitting on his own panicked breaths, Hunter switches his tone back to mother-like, consoling him. “Okay, stay with me. Stay with me. I-it’s okay. It’s okay, Miles…” The octoling sighs and rolls his eyes, justifying his decision. “i-if I left one, then, you’d be walking around crooked all the time.” He explains like it was for the inkling’s benefit. “Look, this is for the best, alright?”

The scissors go for the second vas deferens. “Alright, you’re entering a whole new world now… Just gotta… snip… and…” He gasps, amazed. “Okay…” He says with a shocked smile. “Wow!” He grabs the needle and thread and gets to work. “This seriously has to be, like, one of the easiest operations, because....” He can’t even finish, too proud, shocked, amazed by his work.

“Y’know I wonder why they teach ink scouts things like camping and selling… cookies, y’know, cause, this is what’s really useful…” He shrugs and smiles sheepishly at Miles. “I dunno how they’d design a merit badge, though. Wouldn’t that be interesting?”

Miles didn’t listen to that. As the last tear slid down his face slowly, he finishes his tale, like a heartbreaking requiem. “I saw Mick at Aunt Denise’s funeral… I told him what his mom did; he didn’t believe me.”

“If Aunt Denise was here right now, what would you say?”

Miles smiles weakly and spoke with a raspy voice. “I’d say, ‘help. A teenager cut my balls off. Call the police.’” He laughs softly, hopelessly, pathetic, delirious.

“She wasn’t really sympathetic last time, so I wouldn’t really hold your breath.”

~oO0Oo~

“Alright, uhh…” Hunter begins, replacing the ice bag on his groin. “I’d cancel any appointments you have in the next few days because… you’re gonna be sorer than you’ve ever been before… Oh, and I’d say in like eight or nine days, take the stitches out, which I suggest you do yourself to… save embarrassment… Oh!” He speaks aloud as he folds up the textbook, something coming to his mind. “And there’s this website: ‘eunuchsquestions.com’, eunuchs is E-U-N-U-C-H-S - I had a lot of trouble with that. But it gives _great_ advice on how to deal with your castration. You really…” He sighs happily. “You don’t have to go through this alone, y’know?”

“Umm…” Hunter starts before holding up two bloody shot glasses, holding some light purple jiggly sacks. He smiles enthusiastically, wiggling them. “You want some souvenirs!?”

Only spiteful silence filling the air in response.

“No…? Kay… What should we do with them?” He stops to think, before smiling, suggesting with happiness and fun, “We could see how far they _bounce_.” 

Jogging to the sliding glass doors, he opens them, and contemplates tossing the contents down the hill, but stops. “Actually, we wouldn’t want, like, a little animal confusing it for… afternoon snack, y’know?” he shuts the door. “Little… squirrely or coyote might get sick - and… we don’t want _that_ , especially with you being such a conservationist.”

Huffs from tired lungs in the other room as Hunter thinks aloud again. 

“We could grind em’ up in the garbage disposal!” he does a mock-gasp as he walks to the kitchen. “ _Or, or, we could sew them back in!”_ He rolled his head back to the side in memory as he goes to the sink. “We had this shop teacher once, who, uh, _sawed off_ his thumb in class. And then he grabs some ice, _drove_ to the emergency room, the next day, sure enough, he has his _thumb_.” The teen speaks like a grandparent to their grandsquid. “Didn’t bend so well, but, y’know, he could, like, hitchhike and stuff.”

The loud grinding in the sink rings through the house and Miles gasps and shakes his head in disbelief. 

“I’m… just checking to see if it works.” He defends. 

Miles listens as contents are put in the sink, water going on, and then a switch, followed by the squishiest, gnarliest grinding, sputtering noise he’s ever heard for at least twenty seconds. He feels his balls being ground up even though they aren’t there. 

Hunter shuts the switch off, and smiles, hiding a giggle at his own joke. “I guess they uh, weren’t brass…” He fills up a plastic cup with water, then walks back to Miles, who’s still silent. Sighing, the octoling feels almost annoyed. “You’re not laughing, are you?” But he answers his own question. “No, no wonder; this isn’t a laughing matter at all.”

Miles groans when Hunter speaks the sentence. “I dunno, maybe Goggles’ smiling just a tad…”

“I didn’t do anything to him.” He defends tiredly, but his voice sounds more annoyed, tired that he has to say it over and over

“Maybe. Maybe not.” Hunter shrugs. “But I suggest you track down the guy who did. Cause, well, he has no idea what’s waiting for him… here.” He cups the grown-up squid’s head in his palm and hoists his head up. “You need to rehydrate.” He brings the glass to his lips. “Miles, please, c’mon.”

Miles drinks, confusion starting to tumble in his head. Even when Hunter asks, “Do you want more?”, there’s only one question he has that he has to ask. “Why are you being so nice to me now?”

  


Hunter looks away, smiling, embarrassed. “You’re all pitiful now… aren’t you?” He asks as if saying ‘isn’t it obvious?’ I mean, it’s gonna be _tricky_ not letting anybody find out about…” He looks at the grown inkling’s groin. The teen octoling didn’t need to finish that sentence. “No more sex… No more taking public showers… And one of these days, you’re gonna need a physical, and your _doctor’s_ gonna find out… And I - don’t worry, I mean, he’s not gonna tell… his _golf buddies_...And they’re not gonna tell their friends and they’re not gonna tell their friends.” The teen’s eyes are sympathetic, but they almost have a hint of mockery in them. “But couple years down the road, you’re gonna wondering: do your publishers know? Do your models know…?” He takes a few silent seconds. “Does Aviator know…?”

A huff comes from the teen. “God, I’m sweating…” He starts to remove the bloody gloves. “Look, I’ll go take a shower,” he explains, “and I'll be outta your life, okay?” 

“I’ll find you.”

Hunter turns back to him, eyes shown with surprise, staring into his. “Don’t make threats while you’re still tied down.” He laughs as he advises.

“Just sayin’.”

“And what do you - what do you expect me to do about it, hmm?”

“Just sayin’.” He repeats. 

“The _easiest_ thing for me to do, would be to just… _kill_ you.” He shrugs. “But, I already told you, I’m not gonna do that…” He bends down to be eye level with the inkling, sweat dripping off the boy’s face. “ _You don’t get off that easy, Miles_.” He then exhales and looks away. “I’m sweating like a pig. Seriously, umm… I gotta go have a shower, and then…” He rubbed his chest. “I’ll come back later and maybe we can chat some more.”

Miles watches as the teen walks out towards the bathroom, leaving Miles alone… Exhaling in relief and fear, he cranes his neck to stare down at the ice, looking dumbly at it. Taking big breaths, he tells himself, ‘ _Okay Miles, time to be strong_.’ Pulling with all his might, he tries to pull his hands out from the restraints on the wrists as he hears shower water being turned on. The sides of his hand and thumb burn with blisters, but it’s no use. 

Snot shot out of his nose as he exhales harshly, and he tries again, the knots not budging an inch, but his left-hand does, and the blue ropes slide up his hand and around his fingers, causing him to take a gigantic breath in relief and surprise. Turning on an achy back to his side, his fingers pick at the double knot around his right wrist, his socked feet that are also tied violently kicking in anticipation.

Both hands are free, and a bloody ice bag and bloody towel drop to the floor in between the grey socked feet as the inkling sat up in pain, both in his back and shoulders, but surprisingly not his groin, as it is still frozen to hell. Shocked, a tear sliding down his left cheek, he grunts and looks down at the damage, pulling off a silver chip clip covered with blood that holds the stitches together as well. Normally, he’d laugh at the dark comedic irony, but instead, he just stares blankly at the silver, before tossing it to the hardwood with a clatter of clinks. 

More tears and huffs, he looks at the situation. The bindings are off, and he starts to hysterically laugh quietly. “I’m still here…. I’m still here…” That smile turns into a thin line, and then into a rageful frown, and his eyes spit fire. 

After untying his legs, he hops slowly, shakily from the table, stumbling towards the camcorder, and pulling out the yellow video cord from the side. Turning on the TV, then shutting it off, he presses the ‘Record’ button on the VCR to stop the recording and ejects the tape slowly, the videocassette already labeled, ‘ _Castration Procedure_ ’. An angry face as he faces the kitchen after placing the tape on top of the VCR, he pulls on his pants, and sweatily walks into the living room on shaky legs, sweat still streaming off his face. 

He grabs the Squidphone off the table that belongs to Hunter, and swipes the screen to the emergency call section, and presses the nine, and then the one twice. But his brain told his eyes to look up towards the sink, instead of his thumb to press the green. Two bloody shot glasses stood by the sink’s side, and his eyes store at the switch. 

_Do you want some souvenirs?_

That douche took and ground his own balls up…

Rage through hot breaths. 

Shutting the phone off, he storms to the operating table, where the textbook sits, along with a first aid kit, a few different medical scissors, black thread, and a blood scalpel… a scalpel with _his_ blood…

Selecting it in a shaky hand, he stares at the drops of blood, his own purple ink also among the blood.

In a mixture of exhaustion and excitement, the inkling storms towards the running water, scalpel ready. His face blends with anger and pleasurable anticipation. Pausing by the doorway and taking a deep breath, he kicks open the bathroom door, storming into the white room. 

He violently rips the curtain to the side.

Hunter storms up from behind in a black muscle shirt as Miles turns around. The octoling shoves him down into the tub, water showering the inkling, wetting him as he grunts in surprise, bashing his head on the shower wall and landing into the corner of the tub. Even though he raises the scalpel, Hunter’s hands are on his chest, hid head wound clearly deep from earlier in the day, and a loud, rapid clicking is heard as the octoling shoved the taser against Miles’ chest, water covering them both. 

Miles grunts in pain as the currents burn him from the middle of his chest, webbing through him like a hot spiderweb. He brought his fists up to his face in muscular spasms, the currents locking them in place as his mouth hangs open. He coughs and yells, grunts as his eyes roll back. Hunter’s eyes look rageful too, adrenaline showering over him just like the water rolling off his head and the tip of his one tentacle, joining the other drops all over Miles and the other boy’s body.

The red-inked octoling fires a second crackle of currents through his chest again, currenting the water all over their Miles’ soaked clothes now, too. Loud grunts as the purple inkling found the energy to push Hunter’s wrist up slowly, the other pushing it back down. The cackling of electricity continues as Miles takes an adrenaline-filled gasp, using both hands to push down more against the man’s strength, trying to overpower the grunting inkling. 

But he’s bigger and stronger than him, and while holding the taser, he’s also trying to sit up in the tub. Hunter would have to force him back down, but that would mean taking a second fist off. Adrenaline shooting through his veins, the octoling with water dripping off his tentacle shoves the taser right into his chest as if he could punch a hole through it, and pulls the trigger, letting out a loud, long, anger-filled grunt until the inkling passes out, his head thrown back into the tub amongst the shower, his eyes in the back of his head now - pure white. 

Raining on top of his tentacle, Hunter takes much needed deep breaths, his lungs on fire, staring at the work he just accomplished. Taking another deep breath, he shoves the taser into his shirt again, grunts, and continues to send volts through the inkling’s body. Was it in anger? Or just to be sure? 

Maybe it was actually both. 

~oO0Oo~

The wet octoling in the black muscle shirt, many different elastic bands hanging on his wrists, storms into the hallway, taser in hand. Turning into the bedroom, he retrieves his bookbag and walks into the living room to get to work, pulling out a soft yellow towel in his gloved hands.

He starts with the vodka bottle used earlier in the day that got them drunk, and which was used to sterilize Miles’ testicles. Wiping it clean of any prints, he places it back in the freezer.

The shot glasses squeak with cleanliness as Hunter wiped them, the beverage holders used to cradle Miles’ balls after the operation. No blood was left inside.

He wipes off the coffee table thoroughly, not wanting to leave any traces of anything that could be used to find him.

Storming out of the bedroom again deep in thought, he goes to the media room next, Miles’ slowly painfully crawling with the scalpel in his right hand. He’d go for his feet and legs, knock him down, and slit his little throat - easy like butter with such a sharp knife. But the action of him crawling was pitiful…

Grabbing the videotape from on top of the VCR, he places it in his bookbag - the reminder of what he did that day would always be with him… The boy, however, rolls his eyes when he sees Miles crawling with his one arm only, his legs were already out of walking for now, and just simply ignores him. Moving a vase as he begins to wipe down another table in the living room, the porcelain falls and shatters, sending Hunter throwing his hands in the air and looking up in frustration. Breathing heavily in anger, he storms over to Miles, who doesn’t even have time to put his plan into action before the teen tased his back in complete annoyance until he blacks out with a gasp, leaving the octoling to rip the scalpel out of his fingers aggressively. 

Evening light draped over the boy’s body like a golden cloak as he stares at the blank red wall. Bending down, he picks up another canvas in his gloved hands and places it back on its velcro holding amongst the red. Standing back, he sadly appreciates it.

The octoling drags a black chair into the kitchen and leans his phone between his ear and cheek as he wipes the sliding glass door. “Hey Kami. Uh, look, I’m gonna be done, like, _so_ much sooner than I thought, so, do you wanna catch a movie or something? … Cool.” Silence comes before the smile and exhales with the rolled eyes. “No, I’m not _telling_ you.” He giggles like a schoolgirl. 

Sitting at the computer that caused so much damage, he smiles to himself as he types with his gloved hands into the text box. ‘ _Tried to shoot myself. Can’t even do that right._ ’

He stood by the yellow wall as he made the second call.”Yes, this is Lieutenant Hunter, IPD. You’re acquainted with a photographer, one Miles Kohlver?” Silence. “Yes. There’s… been an incident here; is it possible that you could assist us? … I’m not at liberty to discuss that this moment, sir, but it's a very delicate matter, and, the sooner we can speak with you here, the better chance we have at keeping it out of the newspapers… We appreciate that. The address… yes… yes, that’s the place… how soon do you think you can be here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boi, things are heatin up! Thanks for making it this far everyone!


	7. Chapter 7

Hunter’s face winces in a struggle as he drags the unconscious body of Miles across the hardwood. The man’s hands tied together at his front with the thick blue rope again. Passing the rock garden, slowly, barely two steps at a time. While Hunter is very smart and his agility is good, his strength, however, is not. He drags the inkling up, whose head hangs to the side in an unconscious state, by his underarms for more leverage. Up… not across the floor… up…

The chair stands in the kitchen, Miles’ toes just barely touching it. Not standing on it, but just touching it. Hands tied together, there’s more blue rope - a single strand - across his chest, under his arms, holding him up as sort of a reverse counterweight. Each side of the chest rope is tied to one of the beams in the kitchen. The last rope is a noose around the man’s neck. Not a classic noose, but more of a rope around his neck tied with a few knots instead. 

The inkling looks around slowly, dazedly, getting his thoughts together. What the hell was happening?

Hunter placed both hands on the purple inkling’s hips, inches away from his face, smiling proudly. “Steady…” He directs happily like a child on a balance beam. “Stand straight… there we go…” He whispers happily. Running a hand down the man’s leg, he pulls at the ropes connected to the beams, disconnecting them, and coming off of Miles’ chest and underarms, and he drops.

He panics and gags, realizing the situation he’s in. The only reason he’s not choking to death or his neck broken is the tips of his toes connected to the chair. He struggles to breathe and Hunter hops on top of the kitchen island half a meter away from him, crossing his legs, smiling. 

“You’re insane…” The inkling says lowly. 

The red tentacle hangs loosely over the middle of his forehead. “Right. Which I  _ did _ tell you when we first met, remember?” He scratches his head and smiles. “Four outta five doctors agree,” Miles says nothing, just staring at the teenager, so he continues. “Maybe I should ask my therapist. See what she thinks about it.”

“Ask her how much it would cost to get a padded-”

The doorbell echoes throughout the house, and both males look to each other, and then towards the door, realizing what’s at risk. One pair of eyes is panicked, the other is desperate. Instantly, Hunter springs up, and Miles looks to the door. 

“ _ Help! Help- _ ”

The rest is cut off by duct tape across Miles’ lips from Hunter, while the grown inkling continues to cry behind the tape. Hunter grasps his cheeks, and sternly whispers, “ _ Shut up! _ ”

Trying not to hyperventilate, he calms himself down and goes for the door. 

Mrs. Toxuda waits at the oak door until it opens, a sweaty, red-tentacled octoling coming out with large eyes, a black muscle shirt on. 

“Hi.” The teenager says, almost out of breath, keeping the door shut, just large enough for the octoling to squeeze through.

The nice, kind lady is taken back a bit but looks with kind and care-filled eyes. “Oh, hello, is Mr. Kohlver here?”

“O-oh, uh, he’s a-asleep.” The boy stutters, going in front of the door, almost awkwardly protecting it, even though it’s still open a bit. “Not feeling so well.” The door shut completely, and the teen pointed back at the door. “Think it’s food poisoning.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that…” She empathizes. “A-are you-”

“I-I’m his nephew.” He says softly, a concerning look on his face as he steps forward and shakes hands with the kind lady.

“Oh really?” There is a silence for a second. “Can I ask you something?” Her look goes concerned, suspicious. 

“O-okay...”

“I-I might be a little out of  _ line _ here… Do you babysit?” As she asks this, she thinks she can see a bit of relief on his face, but he is in fact a teenager, and his mental ideals are probably out of whack. 

“Y-yeah. I do, I do. But I’m only here for like, a couple more days.”

“Aww, that’s too bad. I’m on a  _ constant _ patrol for new babysitters.”

“Right…” He speaks softly. He then looks to the boxes in her arms. “Are those…”

“Oh, yes.” The boy takes them nicely when she hands them to him, as she continues. “Mr. Kohlver’s cookies. My daughter’s an Ink Scout, and I’ve been trying to deliver these, but we’ve always been missing him. So here they are. Yummy stuff.”

Hunter smiles a little. “Thanks… Yeah, Uncle Miles loves his Ink Scouts, so…” The boy starts to head inside.

“You should probably…”

“What?”

“Well… pay me…” She says and smiles. 

“Oh! Yeah, right, uhh, sorry - how much is it?”

“Six.”

“Six…” He digs through his pockets, holding a bit of money. “Could you just, like, wait here for a second?”

“Oh, no problem, sure!” As the boy goes inside, she swears she could hear some agonized, pleaful moans. Waiting patiently, she wouldn’t ever guess the boy is digging through his victim’s pockets, looking for some more gold to pay to get this inkling at the door to leave. 

As the boy steps out, so did some more moans. “Here you go.” He smiles and hands her the rest of the gold. 

“Oh.” Her face turns concerned as she points to the door. “Did I hear something?”

The boy’s mouth hangs open for a second, but he stutters an answer. “Uh, yeah, the food poisoning, he’s… uh, vomiting and…” He scratches his nose as Mrs. Toxuda nods with an understanding hum. 

“I’m so sorry…” The octoling heads for the door. “Y-your cookies!” She reminds him. “And, umm, if you’re gonna be around any longer, I’m just… I’m three houses down, across.” She smiles. “I can always-always-always, use a new sitter!”

“I wish I could…” He smiles and begins to turn.

The question she asks next causes the boy to turn and look at her as he’s about to head through the door again. “Oh, so how’s the roof?”

“S-sorry…?”

“You were on the roof?”

His eyes go from panic to relaxed. “I was.”

“Oh, just a little while ago I was trimming my roses and I looked up and saw you there, I was wondering… who it was, and…”

“Uhh…” The octoling starts to panic. “Y-yeah, we had a… there was a….” He struggled to find an answer.”Leak, and I… just thought I’d go up and check.”

“Your uncle made you go up on the roof?”

“Well… he’s sick, and I… s-said I’d go and see if there was like a hole or something.”

“Right… Did it rain?”

The boy goes absolutely silent. “I have to uhh, go back to my uncle…” the act of saying a disgusting man like Miles is his uncle almost made his throw up in his mouth. 

“Oh, sure. No problem. Just tell him Just Toxuda said ‘hello.’”

“You bet. You bet - thanks.” he runs inside and slams the door. 

Watching with spite as Hunter returns, the octoling jumps up, rips the tape off Miles’ mouth, and opens up one of the boxes in front of him, flashing an evil smile full of mock. “Want one!? Yummy stuff!” his voice has a bit of adrenaline but annoyance in it. 

“A  _ leak _ ?” He mocks. “That’s all you could come up with? Pathetic.”

Hunter’s gaze turns into the most annoyed, evil glare it ever has been the whole day. “ _ Don’t piss me off right  _ **_now_ ** _ , Uncle Jeff _ .” He kicks the chair a small bit forward, making the man dance on his toes in a panicked gag and glare, the message that he’ll knock him off too clear. 

“She’ll be back.” He warns. “She thinks you’re flaky. You might need help; putting it fucking  _ mildly... _ ” The grown inkling grumbles. 

“When you got loose…” the boy looks up. “Did you call the police, did you run for help like an innocent person would?”

“I  _ did  _ call.”

“Ah, right….” he nods his head, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Yeah?” He walks over to his smartphone. “Well then, maybe I’ll just press redial and see.” The teen huffs. “Face it, Miles. You coulda gotten away, and you  _ didn’t _ …” Silence as his face turns into the glare of revenge, evil, and determination. “Now it’s  _ so  _ easy…”

The octoling hops up and puts a hand on his hip, eyes staring right into the core of Miles. “I leave you here… someone will find you… alone with a photo of Goggles. And the confession I typed on your computer.  _ Or _ …” He leans forward to Miles’ eyes. “I have a special time-limited offer: You step off that chair, you end it all, I destroy  _ all  _ the evidence. No one will ever know why you killed yourself… Not even Aviator.”

“I didn’t kill Goggles Mauer!” He sighs loudly, annoyed at this point. 

“Oh, come on, we’ve been over this.”

“Oh fuck you, I’m not gonna beg.”

“Oh you mean, you’re not gonna beg  _ again _ !? Because you do it so well.” The teen mocks crying, half sobbing, but no yelling... “Please… please, pretty please, with a cherry on top…” His eyebrows lower into a half-angle that makes the octoling’s eyes angrier, along with the cruel sentence he adds to the end. “One that you just had to pop.”

There was silence for a second. But then the purple inkling speaks up. “You’ll leave a clue.” He threatens. “You’ve messed up once already. More than once. Mrs. Toxuda’s made you.” He smiles a little, threatening this little shit. “She’s figured you out. They’ll find you.”

“They might.”

“No, they  _ will _ . You’ll spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder. Waking up on the middle of the night… jumping at every noise…” He speaks as if from experience but mocking him still. 

Hunter jumps down. “How hard do you think they’re gonna look for me, really? I mean, they find a pedophile killer all gift-wrapped for them; you think they’re gonna  _ care _ who did the work? You think they’re even gonna bring it up?” He smiles, returning the mockness. “A-And, you know what, I will have the  _ biggest _ legal defense you  _ ever _ saw. If everyone who’s ever been molested sends me five gold, oh, c’mon, I’ll be able to afford… the best fucking lawyer in the world. What? Worst case scenario… Two years of community service… Pearl and Marina direct the movie version of the whole thing…”

The boy walks up, looking upwards, eyes gleaming at Miles. “Who do you want to play you?”

This is the inkling’s moment. All the energy he has, he pushes off his toes, and wraps his legs around Hunter’s neck, and squeezes. He grunts out loudly, and Hunter screams in shock and anger, voice muffled under Miles’ scissoring legs. The octoling bats at the swinging Inkling’s stomach, hoping to knock the air out of him so he can swing freely in the air and die; but Miles has a firm grip around his neck. 

More grunting and screaming from Miles, who’s losing his oxygen, gasping, and hanging onto Hunter’s tentacle for dear life, fearing the truth that if the octoling would get out, he would suffocate under the rope.

Holding the legs and twisting his head, Hunter slides out from the headlock and slams his back, falling against the kitchen counter on the floor, looking up in horror as Miles already has used the momentum to place both feet up on the counter, and stand up to get air. Wasting no time, the octoling bolts out of the room.

Tongue hanging out, hands bound, The purple inkling slides a finger between the rope and his neck, trying to loosen it to get a little more air

Meanwhile, Hunter runs to Miles’ room, looking back and forth, practically shitting his pants in fear. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.... To hide, run… he looks back and forth still - what can he do? Sweating in panic, he puts a hand to his forehead in a daze, knowing full well that the precious seconds are being wasted as Miles struggles to get free. 

He turns and bolts for the sliding glass door.

Miles already pulls the noose off his neck, gasping, choking for air as he drops to his knees on the counter. Spitting, he reaches for a steak knife in the knife block on the counter and begins to saw through the blue ropes.

Hunter ducks under the trees in the front yard while dashing. His arms swing wildly in fear as he looks behind him, checking out the situation. Not stopping for anything, he circles around the house as the last thread is snapped by the knife’s sharp blade and Miles grunts in triumph. Taking a breath as he gets to the ground, he selects a large chef’s knife from the block and taking a small breath, looking around - unusually calm. 

“You didn’t leave, didja?” He calls out into the house. “... No… You don’t wanna leave  _ me _ … Do ya?” He storms down the hall.

Hunter circles around the back, opens the kitchen door, and scampers inside swiftly, like a cat. A  _ fearful  _ cat. As Miles stares out the sliding glass doors with an evil look in those eyes of his, those purple tentacles tied back, Hunter dives behind the kitchen counter quietly, holding onto the corner, peering from behind. 

The red octoling closes his eyes in fear after as he stares at Miles, already outside, but looking back in through the glass doors, a fist on the glass, the knife tracing and shrieking against the surface as it’s dragged along with the other hand. “I know you’re not gonna leave,” He teases, torments, plays with the octoling, unaware of where he is. “C’mon!” He calls out.

No chance… Hunter watches and waits until the adult walks away from view, and he jumps up. Grabbing the rope from the ceiling rafters, he drags them down with shaky arms and panicked breaths and stuffs it in his bag. The teen’s head whips around when he hears the kitchen door’s locked handle jiggling, and then a fist banging once on it in frustration. 

Storming around the outside of the house and past the ladder, Hunter used to get to the roof, Miles books it back inside to check it out. He stands in the silence of the kitchen, knife ready, determined to plunge it into young flesh - determined to see this through to the end. 

He hears a door slam. Following the sound, heading towards-

Wait. He looks up. The ropes are gone… “Oh, you’re good. You’re  _ so  _ good, you’re so fucking good, you’re just like him.” He backs up into the hallway, staring around blankly, covering his eyes with a hand. “You’re all just fucking like him. You wanna  _ drive a man fucking crazy! You go, and you fucking go!” _

He turns and drives the knife right into a portrait canvas of a teenage boy next to an opened suitcase - right into his chest. He screams the word ‘go’ over and over, stabbing each time he rages with the word until the portrait is a massacre of fabric, and the boy is gone… gone… 

And he bangs his head onto the wall, then turns around, and falls. He stares blankly forward and whimpers the silent truth to himself with unsatisfied rage needing to be settled. “You’re right… you’re right, Hunter… Thank you… Thank you… This is me. This is who I am. Thank you. Thank you for helping me see it.”

He looks up to the footsteps on the roof, and his mouth hangs open. A shine of silver as the knife is yanked out of the canvas from the inkling. 

Hunter stares into the late afternoon sun, a bath of gold washes over him. He scratches his head wound, exhausted from the day’s work. Inkopolis is still bustling with activity. Workers are heading home, inklings and octolings are finishing their turf wars, the Salmon Run shifts about to start, and an inkling in Aviator sunglasses and a Squid Satin Jacket drives up the road towards Miles’ house, as per request from the lieutenant. 

Miles storms outside, and wonders towards the only way up he can find: the steel ladder, and looks up… But before storming up to satisfy his determined anger, he picks up something out of the grass - the elastic bands Hunter had around his wrist. 

A knife was put up on the roof first with a hand clutching it, and the octoling turns around - eyes half opened - to the ladder. His face looks tired, exhausted, scared, but also excited in some way. 

A satisfying snarl from the wolf as he sees the boy without his hood, and he himself gets on top of the gravel roof as well, rocks crunching beneath his feet. 

The red-tentacled octoling walks forward a little. “What took you so long?”

The adult raised his hand, holding the blue elastics. “You dropped this.”   
  


“Oh, I had to.” He sasses. “Or else you would’ve been down there forever. What were you doin’, jerkin’ off?”

Miles’ face turns to one of pure excitement as he clutches the knife. “Which do you wanna fuck first? Me or the knife.”

“Nuh huh.” He shakes his head firmly and raises the Beretta to Miles’ head. 

But the inkling just laughs quickly, as if saying, ‘really?’ “Y’know how to use that?” He advances.

The sight of the teen cocking the gun, loading a round into the chamber answers the question. “Honor student, remember!?” He cocks his head. “Nothing I can’t do when I put my mind to i-”

Miles lunges at the boy suddenly with the knife, intending to slice his stomach open, but he slips on the gravel surface of the roof, which causes Hunter to slip onto his back as well, landing on the rocks too, and firing a shot into the air in shock. A loud bang rolls through the hills as Hunter stares at the weapon in shock. Being younger and healthier than Miles, he scrambles up and points the gun down upon him. “Look,  _ toss the knife in the backyard! _ ” He screams, but there’s clearly panic and fear in his voice. 

“Or what!?” Miles threatens excitedly as he scrambles up as well, staring into Hunter’s eyes. This man knows the kid isn’t a killer… “Or you’ll shoot again? Go on, shoot me,  _ shoot me! You’re not gonna shoot me! _ ”

“It’s not  _ me  _ you have to worry about. It’s Aviator.” Miles pales and stares silently at the teen while he continues. “I called him. Told him I was Lieutenant Hunter from the IPD.  _ How far does he live, Miles _ ?” Miles looks down the street as Hunter continues harshly. “Look over there.”

“No, no, no-”

“ _ Look over there! _ ”

The adult turns to his left. Wrapped around the chimney is a fresh, new noose with that same blue rope. No words were needed to explain this. 

“Look, the deal’s still open.” Hunter gambles with sad eyes. “You put the noose around your neck, you end this whole game. I will  _ still _ clean up  _ all  _ the evidence; you’re running out of time!” But as per usual, the teen sees the doubt in the purple inkling. “Or we can wait for him… And I will pull off my clothes…” He moans in an almost theatrical way, fumbling with one of the straps on his black muscle shirts. “And I will  _ run _ into his arms…”

Miles buries his face into his palms “What, unless I  _ hang  _ myself!?” He fights back. All those days of his. His childhood, first kiss, the first day of high school, memories, likes and dislikes, all will be gone… Sternly, he points the knife at the octoling after checking the road again. “I’ll find you,  _ I’ll track you down- _ ”

“Assuming you knew  _ anything _ about me.” He argues back, and the hang onto hope and reason the adult had has started to slip. 

“What, an Inkopolis octoling boy who’s dad teaches at UIS shouldn’t be that hard to find.”

He nodded. “You believed all that? Huh?”

All the hope crashes and dies right then, takes all the moisture from his throat, all reason; gone. He thinks back, all the stuff they had said for the past weeks, and this day… His face shows confusion and pure fear. “God,  _ who are you _ !?”

The gun still points at Miles, and Hunter smiles, almost crying. “It’s hard to say for sure… maybe not an Inkopolis boy… maybe not the  _ son  _ of a  _ med school  _ professor.”

“Maybe not even a friend of Goggles Mauer.” Miles’ guess concludes.

“Maybe not even named Hunter.” He smiles.

Sighing in defeat, Miles looks away, his tied tentacles swinging as he turns back, stepping forward one step. “Who the hell  _ are  _ you!?”

Hunter thinks for a second, justice slamming into his words and stabbing Miles with each part of the Inkling language. “I am every little boy… you ever  _ watched. Touched. Hurt. Screwed. Killed. _ ”

Shocked, he stares down the barrel of the Beretta before hearing the slow whooshing of an upcoming car into his driveway, and his eyes widen, and he drops into the gravel, his sanity finally broken. The knife drops as he looks up into the sky, then drops his head to the rooftop gravel and hides his eyes in shame, and breathes heavily. 

Hunter rushes to his side, and bends down, whispering. “He’s gonna find it, Miles. He’s gonna find it all. Look, _ put on the noose _ . Put on the noose, and  _ jump _ , and I’ll stop it.”

The car door opens.

“He’ll never find out…” He barters and shakes his head. “He’ll just think you were some sad man. Some sad man, that he never should’ve left.”

The calm inkling in the Squid Satin Jacket walks up worryingly to the front door. He stops, taking in the surroundings of the past, not taking off his sunglasses. “Miles?” He calls out gently. 

Miles looks towards the sound in a hope of nostalgia, fear, and excitement. He places a hand on his face in disbelief and Hunter goes on. 

“Bad things… Fucking  _ awful  _ things will happen to you in prison; this is the only way.” Miles looks up and then the final sentence happens. “You’ll wish you’d have killed yourself when you had the chance, this is the only way.”

Rolling over to the side, he cries into the gravel. Hunter was right…

Aviator walks up the walkway and knocks on the door. “Miles?” He calls. The doorbell rings after.

Breathing to calm down, Miles finally looks up at Hunter with sympathy and understanding for the first time instead of anger or lust. “I didn’t kill him…” He admits. “I just watched. I wanted to take pictures, but he wouldn’t let me… It wasn’t me - it was another guy.” He places a sympathetic hand on Hunter’s shoulder and rubs it as a father would. “I’ll tell you his name, and I’ll help you find him. I’ll help you find him.” He says in a justice-filled voice. 

But Hunter looks at him with disgust and shoves the hand off his shoulder. “I know his name… I know his name,  _ Miles _ .” He stands up, looming over this man that now has resorted to looking like a scared rabbit. “And y’know, it’s funny. Aaron told me  _ you  _ did it before he killed himself.” 

The purple inkling looks down and whimpers in helpless tears, pathetic sniffs. “It was him, it wasn’t me…”

The teen bends over again. “ _ I don’t care _ .” He whispers harshly. 

Aviator wanders around a bit more the outside of the house. “Miles?”

Sitting up, Miles looks are the rope, and goes for it, walking to the roof’s edge, staring down below, almost like a monotone robot as Hunter places the noose calmly around his throat, and tightens it slowly with understanding in his eyes. Walking forward a few steps, he looks back to Hunter with a sweaty face. 

“Don’t worry,” Hunter assures. “I promise, I-I’ll take care of it all.”

Everything seems to happen in slow motion. A calming step forward, the adult body of Miles falls from the roof of his one-story house. As gravity takes effect, Hunter starts to run forward on all fours in excitement to watch. 

Memories from the inkling’s past play as he falls, and the last thing he thinks of before his spinal cord’s C2 is pushed outwards is the phrase,  _ Don’t worry, I promise, I’ll take care of it all… _

The snap echoes upwards as Hunter looked downwards over the rooftop. Two words escape his lungs. “Or not.” And he pushes himself away with a smirk that of a younger Aviator. 

~o0Oo~

The book bag is tossed down the grassy hill, and the Little Red Riding Hood in his red hoodie follows it, rolling on his side down after it. 

Hunter sits at the bottom, a flower in his hand as he stares into nothing. 

As he walks down the road back towards Inkopolis in time for dinner, he smiles to himself. His friend Kami always calls him Little Red Riding Hood… 

But is he really the classic human fairy tale character? Or is he really the wolf?

**Author's Note:**

> Ok dudes, next chapter gonna get squeamish!


End file.
